Air Loop Heating Coil Autosizing
What would be some potential reasons that the heating coil in an air loop would be incorrectly autosized? It's a simple air loop with an outdoor air system, two-stage dx cooling coil, one-stage gas furnace, and a variable volume supply fan. It serves ~25 zones with SingleDuct:VAV:Reheat
terminal units.
The dx cooling coil gets correctly sized. The following graph taken from one of the cooling design days shows that the supply temperature follows the supply temperature setpoint and fluctuating cooling energy.
Now we look at the heating design day and see something completely different. Everything is constant and the supply air temperature is nowhere near the setpoint.
I'm stumped. I can increase the Fraction of Autosized Heating Design Capacity
and get it to behave, but I don't see why it's sizing the coil so much lower than what it needs for heating.
If I'm not mistaken it should be grabbing the heating flow rate from the zone terminals, then it's just a matter of btu = Q * deltaT to get the btu/h required for the coil. deltaT would be based off the OAT for the design day and the central heating temperature found in the zone sizing object. Based on the *.eio the calculated heating design flow rate is 9.55613 m3/s or 20239.88 cfm, so a quick calculation yields 20239.88 * (57 - 5.9) * 1.08 = 1,116,999 btu. This is compared to the 562,513.3 btu that is being calculated for the capacity by E+.
If I hardsize it using my calculated value, it again responds appropriately adhering to the setpoint. Maybe this is a convergence issue since it's such a high flow rate loop or is there something else I'm missing?
Sizing Object...
Sizing:System,
Lab RTU, !- AirLoop Name
Sensible, !- Type of Load to Size On
Autosize, !- Design Outdoor Air Flow Rate {m3/s}
0.3, !- Central Heating Maximum System Air Flow Ratio
-17.7777777777777, !- Preheat Design Temperature {C}
0.008, !- Preheat Design Humidity Ratio {kgWater/kgDryAir}
-17.7777777777777, !- Precool Design Temperature {C}
0.008, !- Precool Design Humidity Ratio {kgWater/kgDryAir}
11.1111111111111, !- Central Cooling Design Supply Air Temperature {C}
13.8888888888889, !- Central Heating Design Supply Air Temperature {C}
NonCoincident, !- Type of Zone Sum to Use
Yes, !- 100% Outdoor Air in Cooling
Yes, !- 100% Outdoor Air in Heating
0.0085, !- Central Cooling Design Supply Air Humidity Ratio {kgWater/kgDryAir}
0.008, !- Central Heating Design Supply Air Humidity Ratio {kgWater/kgDryAir}
DesignDay, !- Cooling Supply Air Flow Rate Method
10.88, !- Cooling Supply Air Flow Rate {m3/s}
0.01016, !- Cooling Supply Air Flow Rate Per Floor Area {m3/s-m2}
1, !- Cooling Fraction of Autosized Cooling Supply Air Flow Rate
3.94754559999994e-005, !- Cooling Supply Air Flow Rate Per Unit Cooling Capacity {m3/s-W}
DesignDay, !- Heating Supply Air Flow Rate Method
10.88, !- Heating Supply Air Flow Rate {m3/s}
0.01016, !- Heating Supply Air Flow Rate Per Floor Area {m3/s-m2}
1, !- Heating Fraction of ...
If you send me the input file I'll tell you how the heating coil gets sized. Email is shown on users page.
It is right there in the Sizing:System object
0.3, !- Central Heating Maximum System Air Flow Ratio
...awkward...That field seems extraneous and even then, why would the eio not reflect this value in the
Calculated Heating Design Air Flow Rate
? If I see XXXX for the heating design air flow rate, I would expect that to be the value that equipment is sized off of.This also becomes an OS issue now since that field is labeled as
Minimum System Air Flow Ratio
which means something completely different thanCentral Heating Maximum System Air Flow Ratio
. I didn't even think to check that.