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Proceedings of ASHRAE/IBPSA-USA Building Simulation Conference

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Sizing HVAC Systems under Uncertainty

Yuming Sun, Li Gu, C. F. Jeff Wu, Godfried Augenbroe
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

Abstract: In current practice, HVAC systems are sized based on standardized procedures developed by the ASHRAE. The method, however, implicitly deals with uncertainty in system demand through the selection of design days and the choices of safety factor. Thus, it offers no transparency of the risks that a system design meets the required level of performance. This paper explores a new framework to guide the use of uncertainty analysis (UA) and sensitivity analysis (SA) in system sizing. The new method will replace the safety factor with quantified margins, based on comprehensive quantification of uncertainty. In addition, an efficient probabilistic-based SA method is developed, which is used to identify the important sources of risk with the aim to effectively reduce the uncertainties by better quality assurance or performance contracts.
Pages: 195 - 202
Paper:
simbuild2014_25