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Feasibility Study of Developing a Virtual Chilled Water Flow Meter at Air Handling Unit Level
Abstract
In this paper, a virtual Air handling unit (AHU) level water flow meter is explored by using a control valve as a measurement device. The flow through the valve is indirectly calculated using differential pressure over both the valve and its associated coil and valve stem position. Thus, the non-intrusive virtual flow meter introduced in this paper provides a solution to one of the measurement barriers and challenges: a low cost, reliable energy metering system at the AHU level. Mathematical models were built and the preliminary experiments were conducted to investigate the feasibility of the virtual flow meter applications. As a result, the valve flow meter can be a cost effective means for water flow measurements at the AHU and thus provides an effective index for detecting and diagnosing the AHU operation faults.
Citation
Song, L.; Swamy, A.; Shim, G. (2011). Feasibility Study of Developing a Virtual Chilled Water Flow Meter at Air Handling Unit Level. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /128817.