Development of expert systems in heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC): An energy approach

The recent rapid escalation of fuel costs, the instability of supplies and predicted future limitations have focused attention on the need for a complete "re-think" on fuel and energy usage, with particular emphasis on energy conservation. Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning systems are the major energy consuming equipment in any industry after the Process equipment. The design and use of HVAC systems is therefore an important decision making step in Industry.;The Evaluation of heat recovery, the estimation of heating and cooling loads form the basis for using available energy efficiently. The estimation of space loads is vital for the sizing of HVAC systems, because an oversized unit may use up more of energy and an undersized unit may not meet the requirements in the space. This research is an attempt to evaluate the waste heat recovery opportunity, and to estimate the space heating and cooling loads, so that a computer based tool in the form of a rule-based expert system is available for energy auditors as well as industrialists to use for decision making. The research details on the various aspects involved in the estimation of heating and cooling loads, economizer usage on the air-conditioner and heat recovery.