Presents

Practical

Fundamentals of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC)

for Engineers and Technicians

Revision 11.2

Website: www.idc-online.com E-mail: idc@idc-online.com

IDC Technologies Pty Ltd PO Box 1093, West Perth, Western Australia 6872 Offices in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom, Ireland, Malaysia, Poland, United States of America, Canada, South Africa and India Copyright IDC Technologies 2011. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-921007-85-9
All rights to this publication, associated software and workshop are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. All enquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above. Disclaimer Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the descriptions, opinions, programs, listings, software and diagrams are accurate and workable, IDC Technologies do not accept any legal responsibility or liability to any person, organization or other entity for any direct loss, consequential loss or damage, however caused, that may be suffered as a result of the use of this publication or the associated workshop and software. In case of any uncertainty, we recommend that you contact IDC Technologies for clarification or assistance. Trademarks All logos and trademarks belong to, and are copyrighted to, their companies respectively. Acknowledgements IDC Technologies expresses its sincere thanks to all those engineers and technicians on our training workshops who freely made available their expertise in preparing this manual.

Contents
1 Introduction to HVAC
1.1 General 1.2 Principles of thermodynamics 1.3 Temperature and its measurement 1.4 Pressure and temperature relationship 1.5 Laws of thermodynamics 1.6 Fundamentals of heat transfer 1.7 Fundamentals of fluid flow

1
1 2 6 7 7 8 11

Psychrometry
2.1 Introduction to psychrometry 2.2 The properties of air 2.3 Understanding the psychrometric charts 2.4 Psychrometric processes 2.5 Air conditioning systems-Summer and winter

17
17 17 26 32 40

Requirements of Comfort air conditioning

3.1 General 3.2 Air purification methods 3.3 Thermodynamics of the human body 3.4 Role of clothing 3.5 Comfort and comfort chart 3.6 Design considerations 3.7 Requirements of temperature and humidity-high heat load industries 3.8 Recommended inside design conditions 3.9 Outside summer design conditions for some foreign cities 3.10 Types of Ventilation Systems 3.11 Effect of vertical temperature gradient & corrective measures 3.12 Factors considered in air distribution systems indoor 3.13 Indoor Air Quality 3.14 Design of ventilation systems

49
49 52 53 54 56 60 61 61 63 65 71 73 75 84

Heating & Cooling Load Calculation Procedure

4.1 General 4.2 Definitions 4.3 Design considerations 4.4 Internal Sensible and Latent Heat Load components 4.5 Design condition - indoor & outdoor conditions 4.6 External Load components 4.7 Miscellaneous heat sources 4.8 Fresh air load 4.9 Design of air-conditioning system 4.10 By-pass factor (bf) consideration

105
105 106 106 107 108 109 117 118 119 124

HVAC Systems
5.1 Heating systems 5.2 Warm air heating systems 5.3 Sizing heating systems 5.4 Hot water heating system 5.5 Steam heating systems 5.6 Electric heating systems 5.7 District heating system 5.8 Warm air curtains 5.9 Air-conditioning systems: General 5.10 Air Handling Units 5.11 Functional variations in the design 5.12 Fan coil unit 5.13 Capacity calculation of an air handling unit

129
129 130 134 134 137 138 139 140 144 161 164 178 180

Variable air volume (VAV) systems

6.1 General 6.2 System concept 6.3 Different VAV systems

185
185 185 187

Duct design, air flow and its distribution

7.1 Air flow and pressure losses 7.2 Dynamic losses in ducts 7.3 Duct design 7.4 Duct arrangement systems 7.5 Air distribution system inside space 7.6 Ventilation systems 7.7 Effect of vertical temperature gradient and corrective measures

195
195 198 201 203 206 210 212

Insulation of Air-conditioning systems

8.1 Introduction 8.2 Desired properties of an ideal insulating material 8.3 Factors affecting thermal conductivity 8.4 Types of insulation materials 8.5 Heat transfer through insulation 8.6 Economical thickness of insulation 8.7 Insulated systems 8.8 Importance of relative humidity for the selection of insulation

219
219 219 221 222 226 226 227 230

Air-conditioning equipment
9.1 Air filters 9.2 Humidifiers 9.3 Dehumidifiers 9.4 Fans and blowers 9.5 Grills and registers

233
233 243 249 254 260

10

Refrigeration
10.1 General 10.2 Methods of refrigeration 10.3 Air refrigeration system 10.4 Vapor compression refrigeration system 10.5 Absorption refrigeration system 10.6 Refrigerants 10.7 Refrigerant nomenclature 10.8 Important refrigerants 10.9 Refrigeration equipment

263
263 263 269 272 274 279 284 285 289

11

Controls and Instrumentation

11.1 Objectives 11.2 Introduction 11.3 Definitions 11.4 Elements of control 11.5 Types of control system 11.6 Methods of control 11.7 Selection of a control system 11.8 Typical control systems 11.9 Control specifications 11.10 Conclusion

309
309 309 310 313 322 325 330 331 335 336

12

Installation, Commissioning, Operation, Testing & Maintenance

12.1 Objectives 12.2 Installation 12.3 Charging the refrigeration unit 12.4 Adding oil to the compressor 12.5 Commissioning 12.6 Other service operations 12.7 Operational activities 12.8 Dos and donts 12.9 Maintenance 12.10 Economics

337
337 337 338 340 340 346 349 352 353 359

13

Fault finding and troubleshooting

13.1 Objectives 13.2 Introduction 13.3 Faults 13.4 Troubleshooting

363
363 363 363 366

14 Green House effect and future refrigerants

14.1 Objectives 14.2 General 14.3 The greenhouse effect 14.4 History of CFCs 14.5 Ozone depletion by CFCs and the greenhouse effect 14.6 Global warming potential (GWP) and Ozone depleting potential(ODP) 14.7 Montreal protocol (1987) 14.8 Kyoto protocol 14.9 Future refrigerants to replace CFCs

373
373 373 374 377 378 379 381 382 383

Appendices
Appendix A: Symbols and units used in psychometric tables Appendix B: Properties of refrigerants Appendix C: Practical exercises Appendix D: Equations Appendix E: Testing, Adjusting and Balancing in HVAC systems Appendix F: Conversion Tables Appendix C1: Practical Exercises-Supplement Appendix C2: Practical Exercises-Supplement-Psychrometric Chart Plotting

389
389 397 405 425 485 501 507 587

1 Introduction

Objectives
After reading this chapter the student should be able to: Refresh his knowledge on the engineering basics Understand the laws of thermodynamics

1.1

General
Air conditioning for human comfort was considered a luxury a few decades ago, but now it has become a necessity in life. The air conditioning industry is rapidly developing throughout the world. More than 10 million window installations are being installed each year and residential central cooling installations are enjoying similar popularity. Apart from reasons for comfort alone, air conditioning is commonly used nowadays in various industries such as food, automobiles, hotels, textiles and many more. On Earth, not only pollution from smoke is on the rise but pollution from dust is also playing havoc with our lives. Air conditioning plays a vital role in keeping out smoke and dust which could harm our health. Similarly, air conditioning has an important role to play in the preservation of food. At present, there is hardly any sector of the economy that is not dependent on this industry. In fact in most areas of industry, HVAC systems are considered to be a basic necessity. It is thus important to become part of this industry and this course is targeted at providing you with the basic knowledge and technology to play a role in designing, installing and commissioning HVAC systems. The following gives an overview of the basic principles of thermodynamics, which play a key role in understanding HVAC systems.

2 Practical Fundamentals of Heating, Ventilation & Air-conditioning (HVAC) For Engineers and Technicians

1.2
1.2.1

Principles of Thermodynamics
Force, Newtons
In simple language, force is defined as a push or a pull. It is anything that has a tendency to set a body into motion, to bring a body to rest or change the direction of any motion.

1.2.2

Pressure, Pascals
Pressure is the force exerted per unit area. It may be described as the measure of intensity of a force exerted on any given point on the contact surface. Whenever a force is evenly distributed over a given area the pressure at any point on the surface is the same. It can be calculated by dividing the total force exerted by the area (on which the force is exerted). Atmospheric pressure The Earth is surrounded by an envelope of air called the atmosphere, which extends upward from the surface of the earth. Air has mass and due to gravity exerts a force called weight. The force per unit area is called pressure. This pressure exerted on the Earths surface is known as atmospheric pressure. Gauge pressure Most pressure measuring instruments measure the difference between the pressure of a fluid and the atmospheric pressure. This is referred to as gauge pressure. Absolute pressure Absolute pressure is the sum of gauge pressure and atmospheric pressure. Vacuum If the pressure is lower than the atmospheric pressure, its gauge pressure is negative and the term vacuum is applied to the magnitude of the gauge pressure when the absolute pressure is zero (i.e. there is no air present whatsoever). The relationships among absolute pressure, gauge pressure, atmospheric pressure and vacuum are shown graphically in the Figure 1.1.

Introduction 3

Figure 1.1 Relationship between absolute, gauge and vacuum pressures

In the above figure Pa is the atmospheric pressure Pgauge is the gauge pressure Pab is the absolute pressure Pvacuum is the vacuum pressure

1.2.3

Density
It is defined as the mass of a substance divided by its volume or the mass per unit volume. = mass/volume Specific Volume is defined as the reciprocal of density or volume per unit mass. v = V/m Specific Weight (Ws) is defined as the weight of a substance divided by its volume or the weight per unit volume. Ws = m/V

1.2.4

Work
If a system undergoes a displacement under the action of a force, work is said to be done; the amount of work being equal to the product of force and the component of displacement parallel to the force. If a system as a whole exerts a force on its surrounding and a displacement takes place, the work that is done either by or on the system is said to be external work.

1.2.5

Energy
A body is said to possess energy when it is capable of doing work. In more general terms, energy is the capacity of a body for producing an effect. Energy is classified as