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1.

INTRODUCTION

Properly designed residential heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC)

systems should provide good comfort and high efficiency at minimum cost. Oversized

HVAC systems compromise indoor comfort, reduce system efficiency, and increase the

initial investment and energy cost. (Khattar et al. 1987; Reddy and Claridge 1993; Neal

and O’Neal 1994; Proctor et al. 1995; James et al. 1997). Since load calculation is the

main factor affecting the selection of HVAC system capacities, it is essential to use a

reliable heating and cooling load calculation procedure to obtain high efficiency and good

quality both for the design and energy utilization of a residential HVAC system.

It is important at the outset to define three inter-related but often-confused

concepts: heat gain, cooling load, and heat extraction rate. Heat gain is the rate at which

energy enters into or is generated within a space. Heat gains can occur in various forms

such as solar radiation, heat conduction, internal heat gain, ventilation and infiltration air,

etc.

Cooling load is the rate at which energy must be removed from a space to

maintain the temperature and humidity at the design values. The space heat gain usually

does not equal the space cooling load. This is because the radiant heat gains must first be

absorbed by the surfaces enclosing the space and the objects in the space. Only when the

surfaces and objects receiving the radiant heat become warmer than the surrounding air,

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will some of this energy be transferred to the air by convection and become a part of the

cooling load.

The heat extraction rate is the rate at which energy is removed from the space by

the cooling and dehumidifying equipment. It equals the space cooling load only if the

space conditions are kept constant by the operating equipment. Although the heat

extraction rate is usually not calculated for commercial building equipment selection,

permissible temperature swings in residential buildings require that this be considered in

the development of a residential load calculation procedure.

Since the subject of this validation work is a newly developed residential load

calculation procedure based on the heat balance method, it is of interest to consider the

background of this procedure. Accompanying the historical development of air

conditioning, building heating and cooling load calculations have gone through a

continuous development. Romine (1992) gave a short summary of the development of

load calculations in ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-

Conditioning Engineers) until 1992. The load calculation development history both in

ASHRAE and CIBSE (Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers) is also

reviewed by Rees, et al. (2000).

1.1 Non-residential Cooling Load Calculation Procedures

For nonresidential (commercial and industrial) applications, three methods were

presented for calculating cooling loads in the 1997 ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals.

These are the transfer function method (TFM), the cooling load temperature

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difference/solar cooling load/ cooling load factor (CLTD/SCL/CLF) method, and the

total equivalent temperature difference/time averaging (TETD/TA) method.

The three methods are directly or indirectly an approximation of the heat balance

method (to be discussed in more detail later). This is because calculating cooling load for

a space inevitably involves the calculation of a conductive, convective, and radiative heat

balance for each room surface and a convective heat balance for the room air. Exact

solutions of space cooling load by heat balance procedures requires a rigorous and

laborious calculation of the heat balance equations and is impractical for widespread or

routine use without the speed of modern digital computers (ASHRAE 1997). Due to the

limited computer capability available in earlier days, various simplified forms of the heat

balance procedure were developed for routine cooling load calculation purposes.

As an ongoing effort in developing cooling load calculation methods, ASHRAE

funded a research project entitled “Advanced Methods for Calculating Peak Cooling

Loads (RP-875)” in 1996. As the goal of this project, two new methods -- the Heat

Balance (HB) method (Pedersen, et al. 1997) and the Radiant Time Series (RTS) method

(Spitler, et al. 1997) -- have been developed. As mentioned before, the heat balance

concept is the foundation of the three simplified methods recommended by the 1997

ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals. It has been applied in many energy calculation

programs in one form or another for many years. It was first implemented in NBSLD

(Kusuda 1967), and has also been applied to BLAST and TARP by Walton (1981, 1983).

The heat balance method is introduced for load calculation purposes because it

has the potential to be the most accurate method for calculating space heating and cooling

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loads and may be the most understandable method to practicing engineers. It accounts for

all energy flows in their most basic, fundamental form and does not impose any

simplifications on the solution technique (Strand et al., 1999). It calculates space heating

or cooling load by solving the heat balance equations for each of the outside and inside

zone surfaces and for the zone air. Transient conduction heat transfer through building

fabric is estimated by applying conduction transfer functions. Radiant and convective

heat exchanges at both external and internal surfaces are treated separately, with internal

radiant exchange calculated by the method of mean radiant temperature with balance

(Walton 1980). The heat balance method is also the first ASHRAE load calculation

method that completely relies on computer implementation (Rees, et al. 2000).

Derived from the heat balance method, the radiant time series method is the new

ASHRAE simplified cooling load calculation method for non-residential buildings,

effectively replacing the TFM, TETD/TA and CLTD/SCL/CLF methods (Spitler, et al.

1997). Sharing many heat transfer sub-models with the heat balance method, the radiant

time series method is most similar to the transfer function method and can be shown

equivalent in some aspects (Spitler and Fisher 1999).

Experimental validation of both the heat balance method and the radiant time

series method has been done in test cells at Oklahoma State University (Chantrasrisalai,

et al. 2003; Iu, et al. 2003). As a result of the development and validation work, the heat

balance method and the radiant time series method are presented in the 2001 ASHRAE

Handbook of Fundamentals, superseding the TFM, TETD/TA and CLTD/SCL/CLF

methods.

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1.2 Residential Cooling Load Calculation Procedures

1.2.1 Characteristics of Residential Load Calculation

In comparison to the nonresidential applications, the situation with the residential

cooling load calculation is somewhat different because of some unique features inherent

in residential buildings.

Load patterns of residences differ significantly from those of commercial

structures because of different building scale, construction, occupancy, and controls.

Compared to commercial or industrial buildings, residential buildings are usually smaller,

and their constructions usually have less thermal mass (product of mass and specific

heat). Loads from the residential envelope usually compose a much greater fraction of the

total building load. The internal heat gains of residences, especially those from occupants

and lights, are relatively small. Current ASHRAE design procedure (ASHRAE 1997)

assumes that residences usually will be occupied and conditioned for 24 hours a day,

every day during the heating and cooling seasons.

Residential load calculation usually must be done with a quick and simple

method. This limits the usage of whole building energy analysis programs (such as DOE-

2, BLAST and EnergyPlus) in the residential realm. Large, sophisticated programs

usually allow the possibility of comprehensively describing the buildings. For example,

an energy analysis program may allow the user to specify fairly detailed information on

the cracks and openings of a building in order to compute the infiltration load. This level

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of input can be overwhelming for the typical residential HVAC system designer. Instead,

a method that allows simple input is usually preferred.

In general, most single-family detached houses use constant air volume systems

with one return and a single central thermostat to control the temperatures of all rooms

(Figure 1-1). This type of temperature control necessarily allows temperatures to

fluctuate through out the house. It usually results in temperature swings of several

degrees Fahrenheit between different rooms of a house, which is generally considered

acceptable from the standpoint of the occupants’ comfort. These temperature swings also

result in inter-zone heat transfer and heat storage in building elements, which have the

effect of moderating peak loads. Inter-zone airflow driven by the air distribution system

or thermal buoyancy also produces load-moderating effects in residences. These thermal

interactions, including inter-zone heat transfer and inter-zone air flow, contribute to the

result that the peak or peak total load of the building is significantly less than the sum of

peak room loads. For individual units in multifamily buildings that do not have exposures

facing all directions, the load-moderating effect is not as significant as in the single-

family detached houses, and the loads are usually closer to the sum of the room peak

loads. With the inter-zone thermal communication as an important feature of residential

buildings, the capability to simultaneously model all zones to reflect this feature becomes

one of the primary requirements of the detailed reference tool used to evaluate a

residential load calculation procedure (See Chapter 4).

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Air supply register
Bedroom 2 Bedroom 3

Single air return Hallway Central thermostat

Bedroom 1 Bath roomKitchen

Master zone
Bath room Utility room Great room
Garage

Figure 1-1 Schematic floor plan for a single family detached house with master-slave control

In addition to thermal communication, the control strategy becomes another

important issue in this case. If the zone containing the central thermostat is called the

“master” zone (Figure 1-1), and other zones are called “slave” zones accordingly, this

problem can then be briefly described as the master-slave zone control problem. Because

of the single thermostat control, the temperatures generally cannot be simultaneously

controlled at the design set point in all rooms. The master zone temperature can be well

controlled by the thermostat. The slave zone air temperatures will float depending on the

relation between the zone load and the output of the air conditioning system. The slave

zones may maintain reasonable temperatures if they have load profiles similar to that of

the master zone. Poor zone configurations can result if the slave zones have load profiles

significantly different than the master zone. This “master-slave” zone control problem is

another unique feature of the residential load calculation.

All the features discussed above make the residential load calculation a unique

problem. The load calculation techniques developed for commercial buildings therefore

cannot be applied directly to residential load calculation.

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1.2.2 Prior Residential Cooling Load Calculation Procedures

Prior to the development of the Residential Heat Balance (RHB) load calculation

procedure, there were three common procedures in use for residential cooling load

calculations. One is the procedure recommended by ASHRAE. Fully described in

Chapter 28 of the ASHRAE 2001 Handbook of Fundamentals, this procedure is primarily

based on research project RP-342 of ASHRAE (McQuiston et al. 1984). The second is

the procedure presented in Manual J, published by the Air Conditioning Contractors of

America (ACCA), including the widely used Manual J Seventh Edition (Rutkowski

1986) and Manual J Eighth Edition (Rutkowski 2002). Sharing an ASHRAE heritage,

Manual J is based on pre-RP-342 data, and in some cases, techniques that date from the

1950s. The third is the procedure stated in Standard CAN/CSA-F280-M90 (CSA 1990).

Maintained by the Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Institute of Canada

(HRAI), it is actually an adaptation of the ASHRAE procedure to Canadian use.

Though differing in many details, this family of methods uses the same general

approach to residential load calculation. For cooling load calculations, cooling load

temperature differences (CLTD, or equivalent temperature differences (ETD)) and glass

load factors (GLF) are used since peak cooling conditions occur intermittently for

different rooms during several hours of the day, and buildings do not reach steady state.

Here, the CLTD is a purposely defined and pre-calculated effective temperature

difference so that the steady state formulation can be used for cooling load from opaque

surfaces. The GLF is the effective cooling load produced by a unit area of glazing. It is

defined and generated for the same purpose as the CLTD. The values of CLTD and GLF

vary with building construction, orientation, environmental climate, and residence type.

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With CLTD and GLF pre-calculated, the cooling load for each opaque element is

computed as the CLTD multiplied by its U-factor and area. Cooling load from

fenestration gain is computed as the GLF multiplied by the glazing area. The cooling load

of the building fabric is then obtained by summing up cooling loads for opaque elements

and glazing surfaces.

The CLTD/GLF form of the cooling load calculation is actually an application of

the CLTD/SCL/CLF method in residential buildings. It is not only conceptually clear but

also simple to implement, in that each building element creates a load per unit area and

only an accumulation of component loads is required. However, this “sum up the

component loads” approach is an approximation considering the fact that the real load in

the conditioned space is a combined effect of component gains. Although this

approximation is generally accurate and conservative, consideration of radiant heat

transfer, heat storage effects in the space and the possibility that some heat gains are

reflected or conducted back out again (as explained by Rees, et al. 1998) may cause this

approximation to be inordinately conservative.

Except Manual J 8th edition (which requires an evaluation of the design-day

fenestration gain profiles), all prior methods use single design condition in the cooling

load calculation. The single design-condition cooling load calculation has long been

problematic. To avoid over-predicting zone loads with the “sum up the component loads”

approach and account for heat gain diversity (heat gains generally occur at different times

over the day), semi-empirical adjustments such as multi-hour averaging were used to

derive the cooling load factors in prior methods. However, for multi-family units with

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limited exposure (apartments), it is more appropriate to use the “sum up the component

loads” approach, as the dominant fenestration gains peak simultaneously in this case. To

deal with such configurations, prior methods have used alternative factors and/or

adjustments. User judgment is required to select the appropriate application.

There is also concern about the accuracy in terms of the derivation of the

CLTD/GLF values. The CLTD/GLF values are derived based on the cooling loads

calculated by the transfer function method, which is already an approximation to the heat

balance method. (The Heat Transfer Multipliers (HTM) in ACCA Manual J are derived

from the ETD or CLTD values (which are based on the TFM method) recommended by
th
the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals (1985 for the 7 Edition, 1989 and 1997 for the
th
8 Edition), supplemented by information from other sources that the manual does not

list.) The approximate nature of the transfer function method and its associated errors are

therefore unavoidably brought into the results derived from this method. With the

development of the computer based heat balance load calculation procedure, there is no

apparent reason why this most fundamental method should not be used directly to derive

the CLTD/GLF values (if it is still needed) instead of the transfer function method.

It is also problematic to estimate other important component loads such as

infiltration load. The documentation on air-change method of infiltration is nearly

nonexistent (ASHRAE RP-342, 1984). The widely used crack length methods require an

unreasonably large amount of input for a simplified method (Spitler 2000). Its accuracy

depends on the accuracy of the air leakage data for individual buildings and the

designer’s experience. The ASHRAE method uses the simple mathematical linear model

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(Bahnfleth et al. 1957; Coblentz and Achenbach 1963) to estimate the infiltration rate,

which relates the air changes per hour as a linear function of the wind velocity and the

indoor-outdoor design temperature difference (Details can be found in ASHRAE RP-342,

1984).

Another concern regards the validation of the prior procedures. Although the

evaluation of a load calculation procedure can be very comprehensive, time-consuming

and expensive (if empirical test is performed), the validity of a load calculation procedure

is very important. Unfortunately, none of the prior procedures has been thoroughly

evaluated and validated since their development. Systematic testing of the prior

procedures is not documented in the literature.

In summary, the formulation of the prior residential cooling load calculation

procedures is satisfactory for most residential buildings. However, problems and

questions exist concerning the accuracy of the resulting loads, the method of deriving the

CLTD and GLF values, the method of estimating some important component loads, and

the validity of the prior methods. A new heat balance based residential cooling load

calculation procedure is highly desirable. In the development of the new procedure,

attention must be paid to consider and model the inter-zone thermal interactions and

master-slave zone controls. It is also desirable that the new procedure be well tested and

the system design resulted from the new procedure be carefully evaluated.

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1.2.3 Heat Balance Based Residential Cooling Load Calculation

Procedure

In response to the problems of the prior procedures, ASHRAE sponsored a

research project (1199-RP) “Updating the ASHRAE/ACCA Residential Heating and

Cooling Load Calculation Procedures and Data” (Barnaby et. al. 2004). In this project, a

new residential loads calculation procedure - Residential Heat Balance (RHB) – was

developed. RHB is a detailed heat balance based procedure. It requires computer

execution, as the room-by-room hourly design-day simulation used in this procedure is

computationally extensive. The hourly design-day simulation eliminates issues of gain

diversity that are problematic in prior procedures, which use single design condition. The

average/peak distinction used in prior procedures is no longer necessary, as the design

load is simply the peak hourly load.

For calculation of sensible cooling load, RHB applies the general approach of the

ASHRAE Heat Balance (HB) method. As the heat transfer equations are solved in their

most basic, fundamental form in the heat balance method, prior concerns about the “sum

up the component loads” approximation are eliminated. The concern regarding the

approximate accuracy of the transfer function method, which is used in the derivation of

the CLTD/GLF factors of the prior methods, is also eliminated. Considering the unique

features of residential load calculation, RHB includes algorithms for calculating sensible

cooling loads with temperature swing and addresses the master-slave zone control

problem.

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As part of 1199-RP, the ResHB computer program was developed as the

reference implementation of the RHB procedure. The ResHB source code is derived from

the ASHRAE Loads Toolkit (Pedersen et. al. 2001). An additional utility program,

RHBGen, was also developed to automatically generate and run parametrically varied

ResHB cases for testing and research purposes.

The RHB development also involved review, refinement, and extension of the

ASHRAE Loads Toolkit models. Component models and assumptions used for RHB are

considered appropriate for residential application. For example, the AIM-2 infiltration

model was selected for RHB (Walker and Wilson 1990, 1998, and “enhanced model” in

Chapter 26, ASHRAE 2001). An algorithm was developed to derive a homogeneous

layer that corresponds to a framed construction layer, which is common in residential

buildings. Details of the component models and assumptions of RHB are documented in

the project final report (Barnaby et. al. 2004) and are summarized in the literature review

section (see Chapter 2).

One concern left and deserving detailed investigation is the validity of RHB. As a

newly developed cooling load calculation procedure, no validation has been conducted

prior to the work described in this dissertation. Independent and objective assessment of

RHB is clearly necessary in view of the important effect it will have on the residential

HVAC system design.

Theoretically, RHB includes the most fundamental heat balance method, which

potentially is the most accurate method. However, individual heat transfer mechanisms

implemented in ResHB need to be tested. The algorithms included in RHB to handle

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temperature swing and master-slave zone control need to be checked. Cooling loads

calculated by ResHB and hence the system capacity and design need to be evaluated.

Integrated performance of the component models in ResHB also needs to be validated. In

a word, a thorough validation of RHB is highly desirable and has not been done yet.

1.3 Objective

Therefore, the objective of this research is to conduct a systematic validation and

evaluation of the new heat balance based residential cooling load calculation procedure -

RHB. Three types of testing methods will be applied to validate RHB: inter-model

comparison, analytical verification and experimental validation. For inter-model

comparison, a detailed heat balance based computer program will be selected as a

reference tool to evaluate RHB. A parametric analysis tool will be developed for

systematic and automatic implementation of large amounts of inter-model comparisons.

Cooling loads calculated by ResHB will be compared to that calculated by the reference

tool. System designs resulting from ResHB will also be evaluated by detailed simulations

with the reference tool. Inter-model validation of RHB is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

For analytical verification, RHB will be tested against an analytical verification

test suite that the author has previously developed together with other colleagues in

Oklahoma State University: the Analytical Verification Test Suite for Whole Building

Energy Simulation Programs -- Building Fabric (ASHRAE 1052-RP, Spitler, et al. 2001).

The test suite consists of sixteen individual tests, each with the objective to test the ability

of a building energy simulation program to model a particular heat transfer phenomena,

including convection, conduction, solar radiation, long wave radiation and infiltration.

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Tests appropriate for application to RHB will be done and analysis and diagnosis will be

made based on the test results. Analytical verification of RHB is presented in Chapter 5.

Finally, appropriate residential experimental data will be used to validate RHB.

Experimental data will be obtained from a well-instrumented house located in Fort

Wayne, IN. ResHB input files will be created for the house and ResHB-calculated

cooling loads and room temperatures will be compared to measured data. Experimental

validation of RHB is discussed in Chapter 6.

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