Intelligent building automation systems can reduce the energy consumption of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) units by sensing the comfort requirements automatically and scheduling the HVAC operations dynamically. Traditional building automation systems rely on fairly inaccurate occupancy sensors and basic predictive control using oversimplified building thermal response models,...

Control of energy flows within a building is critical to achieving optimal performance of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. To design optimal HVAC control strategies, a dynamic model of the HVAC system – particularly the building zones that it services – is essential. As analysis of building energy consumption is facilitated by the accurate prediction of indoor environme...

A knowledge-based system is presented that has been developed to be used as an advisor in the preliminary design stage of HVAC systems. It enables designers to configure and size HVAC equipment for different climatic conditions, in terms of building type, indoor requirements, outdoor and indoor air pollution. A new approach has been used in building the system, using a modified knowledge engine...

Usually, the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) duct system in buildings is a complex network of hollow metal pipes of rectangular or circular cross-section which behave as multimode waveguides when driven at RF and microwave frequencies of common interest. HVAC ducts can be used as a wireless communication channel for providing high-speed network access to offices [1]. An exampl...

In this thesis a component-based framework for the evaluation of HVAC performance in buildings is developed. Following the method of the demand development HVAC systems are evaluated by means of their energy effort during planing and maintenance. The evaluation is achieved through: determining the energy requirement and energy requirement's impacting factors using a building simulation determin...

A novice method for calibrating the transient model of an automotive HVAC system is presented in this paper. Transient models can be of great importance in the development process of automotive HVAC control algorithms, especially model based ones, as it saves both time and effort. However, the calibration process is usually difficult and relies heavily on experience due to the complexity of the...

Almost half of the total energy used in the U.S. buildings is consumed by heating, ventilation and air conditionings (HVAC) according to EIA statistics. Among various driving factors to energy performance of building, operations and maintenance play a significant role. Many researches have been done to look at design efficiencies and operational controls for improving energy performance of buil...

A data-mining approach for the optimization of a HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system is presented. A predictive model of the HVAC system is derived by data-mining algorithms, using a dataset collected from an experiment conducted at a research facility. To minimize the energy while maintaining the corresponding IAQ (indoor air quality) within a user-defined range, a multi-o...

Life cycle assessment is applied to assess the environmental benefits and trade-offs of a solar-assisted heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system installed in the CIESOL building in Almeria (southeastern Spain). The environmental performance of this system is compared to that of a conventional HVAC system using a heat pump. The study evaluates these systems from cradle to grave,...

A hybrid simulation environment for controls testing and training is described. A real-time simulation of a building and HVAC system is coupled to a real building control system using a hardware interface. A prototype has been constructed and tested in which the dynamic performance of both the HVAC equipment and the building envelope is simulated using SPARK (Simulation Problem Analysis and Res...