US 11,536,483 B1Granted

Model-based control of zone dampers in an HVAC system

AssigneeTrane International Inc.

InventorsYoussef A. Jaber, Wayne N. Kraft, Behrooz Karimi

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Abstract

A method is provided for controlling an HVAC system. The method includes receiving zone airflow target values for zones of a conditioned space. The method includes accessing a duct model including a first term that describes a flow factor for a zone damper as a nonlinear function of damper position, and a second term that describes zone airflow as a function of the flow factor and a branch pressure across zone-specific branches of an air circulation path. The method includes applying the zone airflow target values to the duct model to determine a damper position set, and actuating zone dampers to respective damper positions of the damper position set. The method may also include determining a value of total airflow to achieve the zone airflow target values with a total pressure target, and causing a fan to provide conditioned air with the value of the total airflow.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system comprising:

HVAC equipment with a fan configured to provide conditioned air to a conditioned space that is divided into zones, and that is set up in an installation with ductwork that defines an air circulation path, and zone dampers controllable to regulate airflow of the conditioned air to respective ones of the zones;
and
control circuitry operably coupled to the HVAC equipment and configured to at least:
receive an indication of zone airflow target values for the zones of the conditioned space;
access a duct model including a first term that describes a flow factor for a zone damper as a nonlinear function of damper position, a second term that describes zone airflow as a function of the flow factor and a branch pressure across zone-specific branches of the air circulation path, and at least one or more unknown parameters that are specific to the installation and are determined using a backpropagation-based regression analysis of training data and an estimate of the unknown parameters;
apply the zone airflow target values to the duct model to determine a damper position set;
and
actuate the zone dampers to respective damper positions of the damper position set.

5 more elements

A method of controlling a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system that includes HVAC equipment with a fan configured to provide conditioned air to a conditioned space that is divided into zones, and that is set up in an installation with ductwork that defines an air circulation path, and zone dampers controllable to regulate airflow of the conditioned air to respective ones of the zones, the method comprising:

receiving an indication of zone airflow target values for the zones of the conditioned space;
accessing a duct model including a first term that describes a flow factor for a zone damper as a nonlinear function of damper position, and a second term that describes zone airflow as a function of the flow factor, a branch pressure across zone-specific branches of the air circulation path, and at least one or more unknown parameters that are specific to the installation and are determined using a backpropagation-based regression analysis of training data and an estimate of the unknown parameters;
applying the zone airflow target values to the duct model to determine a damper position set;
and
actuating the zone dampers to respective damper positions of the damper position set.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.