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Use an outside air loop with no conditioning with ZoneHVAC components

asked 2016-03-03 13:34:09 -0600

updated 2020-03-08 11:29:16 -0600

My actual building has water-cooled heat pumps cooling and heating each individual spaces, and there are several rooftop mounted supply air fans that supply 100% OA with no conditioning whatsoever, all load is handled at the space level.

I'm trying to use:

  • Zone HVAC equipment for each zone: ZoneHVAC:WaterToAirHeatPump. I've set the outdoor air flow rates (cooling, heating, no load) to 0 on this
  • An AirLoopHVAC with nothing but an outside air system, a supply fan, and serving each zone through an AirTerminal:SingleDuctUncontrolled object. That will allow me to model the actual fan power consumption, and any DCV strategy I want to try.

I want the ZoneHVAC equipment to size correctly with the unconditioned outside air being brought in by the AirLoopHVAC.

I've tried to set the zone sizing objects as follow:

Yes,                     !- Account for Dedicated Outdoor Air System
ColdSupplyAir,      !- Dedicated Outdoor Air System Control Strategy
33.2,                    !- Dedicated Outdoor Air Low Setpoint Temperature for Design {C}
8.7;                      !- Dedicated Outdoor Air High Setpoint Temperature for Design {C}

Where 33.2 is my summer design day dry bulb and 8.7 is my winter design day dry bulb.

This is because I read in the I/O Reference:

ColdSupplyAir means that the ventilation air will be used to supply cooling to the zone. Cold outside air is heated to the upper setpoint; warm outside air is cooled to the lower setpoint. A good choice for the setpoints would be 12.2 and 14.4 degrees C.

Problem is, I'm getting the following severe errors:

** Severe  ** Sizing:Zone="XXXX", invalid data.
**   ~~~   ** ... Dedicated Outside Air Low Setpoint for Design must be less than the High Setpoint

What am I missing?

(If you see a better way to model this situation, let me know)

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Comments

I am just curious why you created an HVACAirLoop rather than just using the natural ventilation object with a fan, That might have made the sizing easier to deal with.

Annie Marston's avatar Annie Marston  ( 2016-03-08 10:54:20 -0600 )edit

Because why not right?! :)

Like I said mostly because this allows me to model closer to reality (my design specifies the fan characteristics and pressure drop and i can try dcv and have the fan laws correctly represented). And then it's a matter or having one airloop with multiple zones or one ventilation object per zone... I prefer the former.

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec  ( 2016-03-25 02:30:17 -0600 )edit

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answered 2016-03-03 14:02:01 -0600

Your logic seems correct (33.2C for "warm outside air cooled to lower setpoint" and 8.7C for "cold outside air heated to the upper setpoint"). However, according to your severe error message, the values should be switched (Low setpoint must be less than High setpoint). This should resolve your severe error.

As for the modeling approach, this all looks good except I believe that the best option for the DOAS Control Strategy input field is NeutralSupplyAir, since the other two assume some kind of central heating, cooling, or dehumidification will occur.

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I'm pretty sure that switching the setpoints won't work, it means in winter I'd heat to 33.2C and in summer cool to 8.7C. The example temperatures provided show the intent (55F air in summer, something more "reset" in winter at 58F)

The original intent of NeutralSupplyAir is clearly to provide air that is already heated or cooled to the zone setpoint, meaning the DOAS handles the ventilation load and your terminal units are only handling the internal gains (something we see a lot in europe). But in this case I do believe you're right, I think I can use NeutralSupplyAir. I'll try tomorrow!

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec  ( 2016-03-03 15:42:35 -0600 )edit

There does seem to be something wrong with the description of the DOAS ColdSupplyAir activity with regards to those setpoints. The I/O reference states: "Cold outside air is heated to the upper setpoint; warm outside air is cooled to the lower setpoint." The Engineering Ref states: "If the outdoor air temperature is below Tl it is heated to Th. If it is above Tl, it is heated to Tl." Maybe the Engineering Ref means "it is _cooled_ to Tl", but if it's also enforcing Th > Tl, it seems like heating and cooling would overlap.

ericringold's avatar ericringold  ( 2016-03-03 16:12:14 -0600 )edit

I tried NeutralSupplyAir with 8.7C as low and 33.2 as high, not getting unmet hours so I assume it's fine. I don't have time to try switching the setpoint with ColdSupplyAir though... And I couldn't really find in the source code where that's taken into account

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec  ( 2016-03-04 10:03:44 -0600 )edit

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Asked: 2016-03-03 13:34:09 -0600

Seen: 346 times

Last updated: Mar 03 '16