Results from Field Testing of Air Handling Unit and Variable Air Volume Box Fault Detection Tools

Published

April 1, 2003

Author(s)

J Schein, Steven T. Bushby, Natascha S. Milesi-Ferretti, J House

Abstract

Building heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) equipment routinely fails to satisfy performance expectations envisioned at design. Such failures often go unnoticed for extended periods of time. Additionally, higher expectations are being placed on a combination of different and often conflicting performance measures, such as energy efficiency, indoor air quality, comfort, reliability, limiting peak demand on utilities, etc. To meet these expectations, the processes, systems, and equipment used in both commercial and residential buildings are becoming increasingly sophisticated. This development both necessitates the use of automated diagnostics to ensure fault-free operation and enables diagnostic capabilities for the various building systems by providing a distributed platform that is powerful and flexible enough to perform fault detection and diagnostics (FDD).The purpose of the research effort described in this report is to develop, test, and demonstrate FDD methods that can detect common mechanical faults and control errors in air-handling units (AHUs) and variable-air-volume (VAV) boxes. The tools are intended to be sufficiently simple that they can be embedded in commercial building control systems and rely upon only sensor data and control signals that are commonly available in these systems.AHU Performance Assessment Rules (APAR) is a diagnostic tool that uses a set of expert rules derived from mass and energy balances to detect faults in air-handling units. Control signals are used to determine the mode of operation for the AHU. A subset of the expert rules corresponding to that mode of operation is then evaluated to determine if there is a mechanical fault or a control problem. VAV box Performance Assessment Control Charts (VPACC) is a diagnostic tool that uses statistical quality control measures to detect faults or control problems in VAV boxes.This report describes a research study of the application of APAR and VPACC to HVAC systems in real buildings. AHU and VAV box data were collected from several field sites. The study examined the effectiveness of the tools in detecting commonly found mechanical faults and control problems, the reliability of the tools across different building uses and climate regions, and the robustness of the tools in handling data from a variety of HVAC system configurations. APAR and VPACC were both found to be successful at finding a wide variety of faults. Both tools appear to be suitable for embedding in commercial control products.

Citation

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 6994

Report Number

6994

NIST Pub Series

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.6994

Keywords

BACnet, building automation and control, cybernetic building systems, direct digital control, energy management systems, fault detection and diagnostics

Citation

Schein, J. , Bushby, S. , Milesi-Ferretti, N. and House, J. (2003), Results from Field Testing of Air Handling Unit and Variable Air Volume Box Fault Detection Tools, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.6994 (Accessed December 12, 2024)