Most residential HVAC equipment cycles on and off in order to meet the loads of a space. The way this is simulated is a runtime fraction (RTF) is defined as the ratio of the load to the capacity of the equipment (neglecting cycling losses). So a 45% RTF means that the unit is on for 45% of the time-step.
My question is this: What do the node flow rates and temperatures of the fluid streams represent? From what I've observed, it seems like the temperatures represent the temperature of the stream for fraction of the time-step that the equipment is on, but the flow-rates represent the average flow of the fluid over the entire time-step.
The reason I ask is because these definitions of the node outputs are inconsistent with those of fluid streams with modulated flow. I just want to confirm I'm understanding them correctly.