ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an introduction to the principles of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system performance modeling, including a description of the alternative forms of steady-state model, the computational methods for the solution of the model equations, and the potential sources of uncertainty in performance prediction. It describes the application of HVAC performance models to HVAC system fault detection and optimization. HVAC component models consist of the variables to be simulated at the input and output of the component, one or more generically applicable equations defining the relationship between the input-output variables, and a set of equation parameters (constants) that define a specific HVAC component (size). The design and operation of HVAC systems can be optimized by using an optimization algorithm to search for the value of the model parameters and/or model input variables that minimize a specified criterion such as energy use, capital cost, or life-cycle cost.
