Brandon Mailman 4/25/2023 EML 4127 Project 2, FAU recreation building DUE: 4/30/2023 Dr. Davood Moslemian Contents 1) Abstract – 3 2) Introduction – 4 3) Background and Theory – 5 4) Apparatus –7 5) Procedure – 8 6) Data and results – 14 7) Discussion - 19 8) Conclusion – 20 9) Screenshots – 21 Abstract In Project 2 we have discussed the use of (HSS) HVAC solutions software to complement us in the use of creating HVAC building plans to cement pumps, pipe sizes, and air handler sizes. Using schematics given to us for the FAU recreational building on its existing HVAC system we can utilize the schematics to plug into HSS to give us different nominal pump sizes and the efficiencies involved, pipe sizing, handler sizes, calculate the head loss and minor losses involved with long-distance piping. The program allows us to build an entire piping system without any actual cost involved and will even give us an estimated build cost for the entire system. The maximum velocity we are allowed in the piping systems is 7 ft/s off a single aircooled chiller. After filling out the program, we can use the pump data for a real-life TACO pump selection based on the design requirements. The recommended pump selection is a GT Series Single Stage, Double Suction Horizontal Split Case pump setup in parallel when it’s based on the maximum velocity of 7 ft/s @70 percent efficiency. The total head loss from each pump is 48.6ft or 98ft in total for the pair. This seems relatively low but since my knowledge of the HSS program is rather rudimentary I would assume I did not know where to input a certain value. Introduction This project was based on the FAU Recreational Building because of its complex HVAC system involving large area cooling and small area cooler intertwined. This location also hits home because as we all know all of us ATF students are students of FAU and have at some point in our years here been inside the building for real-life observation. With modern COVID and other ailments, having a clean efficient HVAC system gives students and faculty clean air to breathe from good circulation and maintaining temperatures. With Florida being an especially hot place to live, we need the use of air conditioning cooling to keep out mold and keep a comfortable place to go. The verification of the results will be looked at directly in conjunction with the building plans given to us. The plans give the detailed layout of all components involved with the FAU Recreational building involving the chilled piping system to air handlers, expansion tanks, and fans. As well as a detailed layout it has detailed charts of all the specifications of air handlers, fans, and chiller systems we can base the design. HVAC solutions are being used to show how an online program can further our engineering advantages by increasing speed, and precision, and eliminating handwritten errors in solving for piping sizes, piping lengths, and figuring out pump specifications to have an efficient system. In solving the presented topics with HSS we will be using the wizard software to get most of the drawing done most efficiently. After the wizard has been used, we will go through and change the piping section lengths based on what we have measured from the schematics that were given to us in the files. Background Theory FAU’s Recreation Center is an on-campus sports complex with a gym, basketball courts, and showers. Its multi-purpose use as a career center makes it a spot in need of a perfectly running HVAC system to be in place. With people profusely sweating, water running, and the thought of being in a suit all day for job fairs, a properly working AC is a must. This makes the FAU Recreation Center a perfect place to base this project to give students a much better understanding of how the program can help solve engineering issues. HVAC solutions are software used by engineers to aid in the design of HVAC systems for different buildings. HVAC solutions are used for airflow, cooling, heating, plumbing, and many more types of aids in designing an HVAC system. One of the most important functions of the program will be to show the recommended pump sizing and model number for a certain system based on the users’ input data. The program will be used to calculate nominal piping diameters, pump sizes, and conforming BTU/GPM flow ratings throughout the system. When solving for a flow rate through a specific pipe diameter the minimum diameter is a must to know as well. Using a wall too thin can cause a pipe to burst under pressure. But too thick can cause weight issues and added cost. Knowing where to keep the tolerance bound to can be one of the most efficient things to have. The equation for defining the flow rate through a specific pipe size is stated below. 𝒅 = (𝟒𝑸/𝝅𝑽𝒎𝒂𝒙) 𝟏/𝟐 d = minimum diameter, Q = flow rate, V = maximum velocity, Π = pi When we use the formula provided, we can also state the equivalent length method to get pipe lengths and losses through elbows, tee, and valves. After we add up all the “K” values using the above formula we can find the equivalent length after we find the diameter of a certain pipe. After both of those are said and done, we can add them all up to get the total equivalent length of a section of piping. Using a friction loss chart for head loss of every 100 feet of pipe. We can multiply the “K” value and divide it by 100 to find the head loss of the specific section of piping. Apparatus The only program we will be using is the HVAC solutions software to program the HVAC system of the FAU recreation center based on provided schematics. Procedure The first step of this entire project starts with printing out the floor plans of the FAU Recreational Center on 24x36” paper to help scale the appropriate pipe lengths out (1/8” to 1’). During this project, I would round up the pipe lengths to the nearest integer to keep losses higher than what they are to give a more efficient pump selection. Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. After we have converted the schematics into pipe lengths, we can scan the papers for the required pipe diameters for certain sections. After we have found all the numeric components given by the schematics, we can start to build out the HSS program. Using the HSS program we selected the Hydronics system wizard. Inputting a single loop and 5 sized different handlers we can use the software to find the appropriate GPM flow and how much flow the chiller needs to supply. We also gave the air handlers the CFM, wet bell, and dry bell as well as the water temperatures entering and leaving the units. This gives us the chiller settings for the necessary temperatures for it to provide. Setting up two pumps in parallel gives us the flow rate required for the system and from a list we can choose the pumps that will produce the optimal amount of flow for this system. Using the data, we acquired from the schematics given we can input all the pipe lengths, and figures involved to get our final calculations for the entire system. The image below shows the HSS build I have made including all the units. Using the image above we can see all the flow rates, weights, and BTU/s of the components in the system we have created. This can let us manipulate piping sizes, lengths, and positions to appropriately keep the system running at maximum efficiency. In setting up the wizard for creating this HSS file we first start by clicking the hydronic wizard under the wizard tab The next step is to select a direct return, two pipe piping distribution, and a cooling-only system usage since we live in Florida, we would only need cooling and hit next. The number of loops in the hydronic systems wizard is set to 1 since we do not have a two-story system the only loops are all connected. The loads we select are the number of air handlers we are going to use in the current loop. For this application, we will have 5 loads and the orientation will be above. Next, we pick which load type we are going to have for the air handlers, and, they have fan coils. Remember to uncheck the use of this data for the remainder of the loads in this loop. Now we input the data from the given schematics for each air handler that we have. There will be 5 different data sets entered for each unit. The cooling sound selected should be an air-cooled chiller and set to primary. Now input expansion tank data. I left it as it came up and just hit next through the sever options until we got to the pump selection option where we picked the GT series horizontal pump. Using these images, it should be easy to design the HSS system for the given schematics. The next hard part is pulling up the spreadsheet and matching the pipe sections to the ones you have hand drawn and inputting each line of pipe length section given from the schematics. Data and Results The data and results fit in with this project. My knowledge of HSS software has improved but is very rudimentary, to say the least. The pipe diameters seem to coincide with the appropriate ratings of each air handler. The massive air handler 4 is sized with an 8” pipe for ample water flow because of the sheer size rating of the air handler. Outputting 1700 MBH is a hard feat. This unit is more than likely used to cool the large basketball courtroom because of its sheer size. In the figure above we can see the information used to plug into each air handler unit specification in the wizard programming. All of the pipe diameter sizing and flow rates are at a max velocity of 7 ft/s. The spreadsheet below shows all the pipe sections given by the HSS program. We will be focusing on a random 5 pipes to compare hand calculations with the results on the spreadsheet above. You can see that some of the piping material is changed to stainless steel. FAU is within proximity of the ocean and salt spray is something to take into consideration when dealing with the longevity of outdoor systems. Due to stainless steel’s anti-corrosive properties, it is the best fit for this type of HVAC system when dealing with outside materials. Calculating the minimum diameter of pipe sizes can show us the accuracy of the HSS program. From the hand calculations, the minimum diameters of the pipes come in smaller than the diameters given by the hand calculations. This shows that the program is working because you want the next size up real-life fitting for ample flow. They do not make a 2.66” pipe but they do regularly make a 2.75” pipe. And if we want to stay as cost-effective as possible, we can use a 3” pipe that is much more widely available to the consumer market. The pump I chose to showcase for this project build is the TACO GT Series Single-Stage, Double Suction Horizontal split case pump. Its primary use is because of its ease of installation for heating, air conditioning, pressure boosting, cooling water transfer, and water supply applications. It is a quiet, dependable, and proven pump choice. It has a flow range of 180018000 GPM with a 25’-430’ head range which is plenty for our application. HP rating is 50-1500 with a choice of 10” or 18” pump sizing. It has a choice of a stainless-steel impeller, shaft, and shaft sleeve plus, is a sealed pump in a cast iron housing. The model we are picking is the GT35024 with a flow of 446GPM – 6774 GPM at a head of 20’-143’. The flow required for this system is around 180GPM. The program gives us 178.5 GPM as an answer, but I would like 180GPM to be safe. This pump has ample flow for this system. There are plenty of replacement parts available for this pump as well since it will be outdoors. The performance curves for this pump are given below. The 10.64” impeller at 25ft of the head running 50% efficiency is plenty ample for the two pumps to handle. We could even downsize to the 9.84” impeller pump but would sacrifice flow for efficiency. With all the installation manuals handy for this series, pump installation would be a breeze. This pump in my opinion would be the best to be used in this HVAC application. The pump specifications below show the mounting size for the GT35204 and all required dimensions. Discussion The results from the HSS program vary as my knowledge of the program is rudimentary. Overall, everything seems to have worked fine with the hand calculations concerning the output the program gave us for the sizing of the pipes. The lengths were tricky to input as there were a lot of values, and I had no idea where to input them. All the pipes’ minimum diameters had been met and an ample pipe size was selected in that process as well. The pipe materials were picked concerning FAU being so close to the beach and salt spray coming over could corrode other materials being used. The modification of pipes was found that instead of using a 6” pipe for the flow into the larger handlers in the schematics the program decided to use an 8” pipe. Regularly 7” pipe is not available and is especially not accustomed to being used so an 8” was auto-picked. The piping saves by hand calculations came just only 6” so I believe that this is the reason why it picked 8”. Again, my knowledge of the program is not warranted and could have a wrongful input value. The pumps I have chosen will work stupendously with the HVAC system we have created using the program and the given schematics. The head will be met at 98ft combined with the pumps and the flow rate will be met at about 50 ~ 55% efficiency at 1450 RPM and 10.62” impeller diameter of both pumps according to the chart displayed in the data and results section. Conclusion The schematics of the FAU recreational center were very confusing to look at from a student’s perspective especially since I’ve never had to read engineering schematics like this before. I did not necessarily enjoy this project because it is the complete opposite field in which I am involved, engineering. But, from this project, we can conclude that the HSS program can directly help in solving engineering HVAC issues in designing complex systems involving pipe lengths, diameters, pump sizing and so much more. The setbacks I had were finding somewhere to print out the plans on the actual size specified and detailed enough I could get the correct measurements. In the end, I did a mix of using the sizing from an online drafting program and the actual size of the sheet provided. The other setback of the project is the unfamiliarity of the HSS program and its basis of having an entire project around it. I the sizing of the pump I did enjoy as it took more of a real-life application of finding a given pump size to the system requirements. If given a second chance I would take much more time measuring and finding different solutions to HSS using trial and error but, I have run out of time. The aspect of engineering I am most interested in is manufacturing and design, so this project was very uninteresting to me. Given another chance I would love to have it be a semester-long project as well as have a class dedicated to learning the HSS software or labs associated with the software instead of focusing so heavily on LabVIEW. All in all, it’s obvious the usefulness of the HSS software in the creation and development of complex HVAC systems. Screenshots Above: drawn loops from the drafting program giving rough dimensions of the schematics given for the FAU recreation center. Above: Loops for the East penthouse section of the FAU recreation center. Above: loops for M301 Above: pump selection for the HSS program loops. Above: pump efficiency Above: stainless impeller chosen Above: BHP required for the pump Above: zoomed-in shot of a piping system for AHU-5 Above: zoomed-in shot of AHU-4 piping system. Shown: zoomed-in shot of AHU-1 piping system Shown: head loss in the pump Above: all data required for inputting air handlers.
