The VAV Reheat Versus Active Chilled Beams & DOAS paper published in the May 2013 issue of the ASHRAE Journal covers an HVAC system design competition for a real office building at UC in Davis, California. The systems under evaluation are Active Chilled Beams with Dedicated Outdoor Air (ACB+DOAS), a Variable Air Volume system with Reheat (VAVR) and a hybrid of VAVR and ACB’s. Energy and cost mo...

In a historic building with inadequate or no air conditioning or where it is not possible to install modern systems fitted with air filters, humidification, and controls, it is possible to mitigate the effects of temperature and humidity extremes on a building and its contents by controlling air-flow. When used in conjunction with mechanical air conditioning, this method can also save a little ...

We introduce and provide results from a rigorous, scientific testing methodology that allows pure building model calibration systems to be compared fairly to traditional output error (e.g. how well does simulation output match utility bills?) as well as input-side error (e.g. how well, variable-by-variable, did the calibration capture the true building's description?). This system is then used ...

This study demonstrated how to use two simplified methods, the box and momentum methods, to simulate complex diffusers in room airflow modeling by computational fluid dynamics. The two methods require additional flow information that is not available from product catalogues of diffuser manufacturers. This information includes the distribution of discharge air velocity, box size, and flow direct...

This paper describes the development of a web-based, code-compliant ASHRAE Standard 90.1-1999 commercial simulation for Texas. Included in the paper is a description of the software and database platform used in the web application and how this software is attached to the DOE-2 legacy software running on a cluster of servers. This tool will be used by commercial builders in Texas to check code ...

This paper predicts the reductions in the indoor mass concentrations of particles attainable from use of filters in building supply airstreams and also from use of stand-alone fan-filter units. Filters with a wide efficiency range are considered. Predicted concentration reductions are provided for indoor-generated particles containing dust-mite and cat allergen, for environmental tobacco smoke ...

This paper uses a model, and data on particle size distributions, filter efficiencies, and particle deposition rates to estimate the reductions in the indoor mass concentrations of particles attainable from use of filters in HVAC supply airstreams. Additionally, the energy and total costs of the filtration options are estimated. Predicted reductions in cat and dust-mite allergen concentrations ...

The federal government has the goal of decreasing commercial building energy consumption and pollutant emissions by incentivizing the adoption of commercial building energy codes. Quantitative estimates of code benefits at the state level that can inform the size and allocation of these incentives are not available. We estimate the state-level climate, environmental, and health benefits (i.e., ...