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Size the building on the fly to match a Known HVAC Capacity?

asked 2016-05-24 12:40:53 -0500

mkk's avatar

updated 2020-03-07 22:03:45 -0500

I know traditionally the building size is known and the E+ tool gives the HVAC size needed for the building in a given location. But if I am a OEM selling AC units, I want to take the reverse direction and know the size of the building on which a given tonnage will work.

I'd like to set up a building such that the load (cooling demand) of the building would match the capacity of a commercially available AC unit that I pick. Assuming that I start with a Office building and using the templates, if I need this building to be sized such that it would need a 10T AC unit for cooling, for a start I would not know the dimensions of the building, but I can stick to the standard internal loads such as lighting/sq feet , people/ sq feet etc. Now the unknown is, how many sq feet will lead to a demand of 10 T?

Any suggestion on how to do this?

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answered 2016-05-24 14:29:29 -0500

Adam Hilton's avatar

I guess it depends on how accurate you want the calculation to be. I see it as you have two options...

Hand calculation route: You know you have 120,000 Btuh to work with and you know your internal peak load. You can set your solar heat gain proportional to your floor square footage and then write an iterative solver in Matlab or something to find floor area.

Energy model route: You could automate E+ runs where you are scaling the floor area trying to minimize unmet hours.

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Asked: 2016-05-24 12:40:53 -0500

Seen: 85 times

Last updated: May 24 '16