Science and Technology for the Built Environment

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Literature review of building peak cooling load

methods in the United States

Chunliu Mao, Juan-Carlos Baltazar & Jeff S. Haberl

To cite this article: Chunliu Mao, Juan-Carlos Baltazar & Jeff S. Haberl (2017): Literature review
of building peak cooling load methods in the United States, Science and Technology for the Built
Environment, DOI: 10.1080/23744731.2017.1373700

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23744731.2017.1373700

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 Science and Technology for the Built Environment (2017) 0, 1–10
Copyright C 2017 ASHRAE.
ISSN: 2374-4731 print / 2374-474X online
DOI: 10.1080/23744731.2017.1373700

Literature review of building peak cooling load methods in

the United States
CHUNLIU MAO1,∗ , JUAN-CARLOS BALTAZAR2 , and JEFF S. HABERL2
1
Department of Building Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing City, 100084, China
2
Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
Downloaded by [RMIT University Library] at 05:29 09 December 2017

Today, sizing HVAC systems plays an important role in the building design process, requiring an accurate method in order to avoid
problems from over- or under-sized systems. To date, there have been five peak cooling load methods published by ASHRAE,
including: the Total Equivalent Temperature Difference/Time Averaging Method, the Transfer Function Method, the Cooling Load
Temperature Difference/Solar Cooling Load/Cooling Load Factor Method, the Heat Balance Method, and the Radiant Time Series
Method. This study provides a thorough review of the five methods with respect to their history and summarizes the method differ-
ences that can lead to inaccurate sensible cooling load calculations.

Introduction
Buildings consume a large portion of the total energy use in
the United States. A recent study (EIA 2017) showed that the
residential and commercial buildings sector accounted for
almost 40% of the end-use energy use in the United States
in 2015. This has reinforced the interest and efforts of the
HVAC community to analyze, design, and construct new
high-performance buildings that will consume less energy,
look appealing, and provide acceptable indoor air conditions.
However, in many cities in the United States, developers are
asked to try to reuse some portion of an existing structure, or
add-on to an existing structure without really knowing how
that previous building was designed, especially the HVAC
systems. Often, older buildings have existing HVAC systems
that are significantly over- or under-sized, which makes them
inappropriate for meeting the heating and cooling loads
they must supply. In some cases, the thermal mass of these
older buildings has never been adequately taken into account
during the HVAC design process, which may have led to large
errors in the thermal load sizing calculations that produces
inefficient over-sized systems.
Many design tools are available in the market to help the
engineers design buildings more efficiently. Five different peak
cooling load methodologies are used by these tools, includ-
ing: the Total Equivalent Temperature Difference/Time
Averaging Method (TETD/TA), the Transfer Function
Method (TFM), the Cooling Load Temperature Differ-
ence/Solar Cooling Load /Cooling Load Factor Method
(CLTD/SCL/CLF), the Heat Balance Method (HBM), and
the Radiant Time Series Method (RTSM)1 . A recent survey
showed design engineers calculate commercial building peak
cooling loads using, not the most recently published, but their
preferred tools (Mao 2016). Unfortunately, discrepancies in
the peak sensible cooling load calculations exist due to the
different analysis methods. Therefore, there is a need for a
better understanding of what the differences are and how the
different tools should be selected.
A previous study provided broad historical discussions of
the early science, important people and events that included a
timeline of the significant contributions to current peak heat-
ing and cooling load design methods (Mao et al. 2012, 2013).
The current study aims to provide a detailed review of build-
ing peak cooling load methods with the focus on sensible
cooling load calculations and includes a comparison of the
calculation procedures.

Received March 8, 2017; accepted July 30, 2017

Chunliu Mao, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow. Juan-Carlos
Baltazar, PhD, Member ASHRAE, is an Associate Professor.
Jeff S. Haberl, PhD, Fellow ASHRAE, is a Professor.
∗
Corresponding author e-mail: maocl2008@gmail.com
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be
found online at www.tandfonline.com/uhvc.
1
The Residential Heat Balance Method (RHB) and the Residen-
tial Load Factor Method (RLF) that are particularly used by res-
idential buildings (Barnaby et al. 2004) are not covered in the
present article.
 2 Science and Technology for the Built Environment
Early building peak load calculation methods
The development of most engineering methods is often
inspired by the need to solve problems that are relevant and
practical during that period. Early building peak load cal-
culation methods that provided solutions to moist air and
dynamic heat transfer problems began to be developed during
the period from 1900 to 1945 as the air-conditioning industry
developed (Mao et al. 2013).
Sol-air temperature method
The sol-air calculation method was one of the earliest meth-
ods that was successfully used to solve the dynamic heat
transfer through a multi-layer opaque wall. The sol-air
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temperature was defined as:
the temperature of the outdoor air that, in the absence
of all radiation changes, gives the same rate of heat entry
into the surface as would the combination of incident solar
radiation, radiant energy exchange with the sky and other
outdoor surroundings, and convective heat exchanges with
the outdoor air. (ASHRAE 2013)
This concept was originally introduced by Mackey and
Wright in 1944. Figure 1 shows a graph of the decrement
factor developed by Mackey and Wright. They proposed
an equation to calculate the inside surface temperature of
a homogeneous wall using a daily average sol-air tempera-
ture, a decrement factor and a lag angle. In 1967, sol-air tem-
perature was adopted by ASHRAE and later became part
of the ASHRAE simplified peak cooling load methods to
calculate building sensible cooling loads for exterior opaque
surfaces.
Thermal networks
Beginning in the 1940s, several authors investigated the use
of thermal R/C network models for analyzing dynamic heat
transfer. The thermal R/C network method was first pub-
lished by Victor Paschkis in 1942 to calculate the dynamic
heat transfer through building walls (Paschkis 1942). Shortly
after this, in 1944, John Linvill and John Hess Jr. published
their article “Studying Thermal Behavior of Houses,” which
was an undergraduate student project at M.I.T. Their article
showed how the thermal R/C network method could be used
to calculate the dynamic heat transfer of an entire house
(Linvill and Hess 1944). Later, in 1958, Harry Buchberg at the
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) developed a
complete R/C thermal network model for a house using heat
balance calculations at each node that were simulated on an
analog computer, as shown in Figure 2 (Buchberg 1958). The
test house consisted of four opaque walls, two colored roofs
(e.g., green and white), a glass window mounted in the south
wall, a floor and an overhang that could shade the window.
This network represented the conduction paths for the wall,
roof and floor sectors, as well as the transmitted and diffuse
solar radiation through the window that were absorbed
by the interior surfaces. This project was an ASHRAE
sponsored project and is regarded as the first time that the
heat balance calculation and the thermal network method
were used together in a well-documented analog building
simulation.
Current building peak cooling load methods
TETD/TA
In 1948, James Stewart, a design engineer at Carrier Corpo-
ration, published the Equivalent Temperature Differentials
Method (ETD), which was based on Mackey and Wright’s
earlier work. This method was intended to be an easy-to-use,
tabulated design method that would calculate the dynamic
sensible heat gains through opaque walls and roofs. To
accomplish this, Stewart’s ETD tables were generated under
specific conditions: (1) July at 40° N Latitude; (2) maximum
and minimum outdoor temperatures of 95°F and 75°F,
respectively; and (3) a room temperature of 80°F. For tem-
perature differences between the outdoor maximum design
temperature and the room temperature that were larger
than15°F, it was suggested to use the published ETD and
add (or subtract) the difference (Stewart 1948). The ETD
tables were adopted for use in the 1951 ASHVE Guide and
the 1961 ASHRAE Guide and Data Book (ASHRAE 1961;
ASHVE 1951). The TETD/TA was later tabulated in the
1967 ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals (ASHRAE
1967), which added the TA procedure to allow the method
to be suitable for calculating extended hourly profiles when
the radiant heat gain components were averaged over the
representative period for all the thermal mass of the building.
The TETD is formulated by (ASHRAE 1997):
T ET D = tea − ti + DF (te,T L − tea ), (1)
which allows the conduction heat gains through walls and
roofs to be calculated by (ASHRAE 1997):
qT ET D/TA = UA(T ET D). (2)
In the TETD/TA method, hourly averaged sol-air tem-
peratures are used in the TETD calculation and thermal
mass effects are calculated in TETD factors by applying
the appropriate decrement factors and time lags published
in the ASHRAE tables which define specific wall and
roof group numbers for a total of 41 wall and 42 roof
types from which to choose. The solar heat gains through
fenestration are calculated using a shading coefficient (SC)
and the published double-strength sheet glass (DSA) coef-
ficients shown in the most recent updates for TETD/TA
Method (ASHRAE 1997). The fenestration conduction
heat gains can be obtained through steady-state calculation
UAT. Any significant internal heat gains need to be con-
sidered individually. The peak cooling load is then finalized
by applying the TA process. Unfortunately, this requires a
subjective decision to determine the time period for aver-
aging, which varies from one designer to the next. This is
because judging the amount of thermal mass in a building
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Fig. 1. Decrement factor graph (Mackey and Wright 1944). Reprinted from periodic heat flow—homogeneous walls or roofs, Mackey, C.O. and Wright, L.T., Jr. 1944,
ASHVE Journal, 16(9), 546–55.

3
 4 Science and Technology for the Built Environment
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Fig. 2. Thermal network for a test house (Buchberg 1958).
Reprinted from cooling load from thermal network solutions,
Buchberg, H., 1958, ASHRAE Transactions, 64, 111–28.
is a difficult job, which ultimately made the method useful
only in the hands of an experienced engineer. Typically, the
recommended time period for the TETD/TA Method was
3 hours (ASHRAE 1997).
TFM
The TFM can trace its roots back to the Response Factor
Method (RFM). The RFM was first introduced for transient
heat flow calculation by André Nessi and Léon Nisolle in
France (Nessi and Nisolle 1925). In the mid-1950s, Brisken,
Reque, and Hill laid the foundations of the current RFM
based on Nessi and Nisolle’s work. In 1956, Brisken and
Reque published their heat load calculations using the RFM
(Brisken and Reque 1956). In this method, they proposed
using “square waves” to represent a time-varying “curve” of
dynamic temperature response. One year later, Hill developed
a more accurate “unit triangle” method for calculating the
time-varying one-dimensional (1D) surface temperature (Hill
1957). Based on these works, in 1967, Gintas Mitalas and
Don Stephenson developed the thermal RFM, which allowed
for the solution to the dynamic heat transfer problem (Mitalas
and Stephenson 1967; Stephenson and Mitalas 1967). Later,
this method became part of the TFM that has also been
called the Weighting Factor Method (ASHRAE 1981; Mita-
las 1972).
In 1972, the ASHRAE Task Group on Energy Require-
ments (TGER) first introduced the TFM for peak cooling
load calculation, which was based on Mitalas and Stephen-
son’s earlier work (ASHRAE 1972). The TFM is considered
the first, wide-spread, computer-oriented method for solving
dynamic heat transfer problems in buildings in the United
States (Mitalas 1972).
In the TFM, the transient conduction heat gain through
the walls and roofs is formulated by (ASHRAE 1997):
 
  
(qe,θ )T F M = A bnte,θ−nδ − dn (qe,θ−nδ /A) − tr cn .
n=0 n=1 n=0
(3)
To determine the space sensible cooling load, the room
transfer functions (RTFs) concept (also called weighting fac-
tors [WF]) is used, where the cooling load is formulated by
(ASHRAE 1997):
(Qθ )T F M = ν0 qθ + ν1 qθ−δ + ν2 qθ−2δ − w1 Qθ −δ − w2 Qθ −2δ .
(4)
The TFM is a two-step, simplified method that incorpo-
rates the concepts of conduction transfer functions (CTFs)
and the RTFs (also called WFs). The conduction heat gains
of the walls and roofs are calculated using sol-air tempera-
tures and CTFs. The fenestration solar heat gain is calculated
as the same fashion of TETD/TA Method. Any internal heat
gains need to be calculated individually. The peak sensible
cooling loads from solar heat gains, conduction heat gains,
and internal heat gains are obtained by applying the solar WF,
conduction WF, lighting WF, and occupant/equipment WF,
respectively. The infiltration heat gains directly contribute to
the cooling load. Summing up all types of peak sensible cool-
ing load yields the total sensible cooling load for the space.
The following are the limitations of the TFM:
r The construction layer thermal properties and code num-
bers are pre-defined. The TFM relies on tables of pre-
defined material layers. Therefore, the users who apply the
TFM must choose only from the material layers provided
by the TFM tables, which uses the published values in 1997
ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals (ASHRAE 1997).
r The layer groups for walls and roofs are fixed. In the TFM,
there are 41 wall groups and 42 roof groups available for
calculation. The TFM has its own procedure to guide users
to select the closest wall and roof group numbers. This is
because the CTFs are only calculated for those layer com-
binations and tabulated in the TFM tables. This can cause
discrepancies in building sensible cooling load analysis if
they do not exactly match the values in the table. However,
an adjustment procedure is provided to reduce this discrep-
ancy, which uses Uactual /Utabulatedfactor to multiply the tab-
ulated CTF coefficientsbn and cn for modifications. In
this way, the overall U-values can be approximated to the
actual building U-values. As a simplified method, engineers
are only required to pick the numbers from the tables and
perform the peak sensible cooling load calculations.
r An iterative calculation was required in order to achieve
steady periodic results. When converting heat gains into
the peak sensible cooling load, historical
 terms of the pre-
vious peak sensible cooling loads n=1 dn (qe,θ−nδ /A) are
required. When calculating the cooling load for the first
hour on the very first day, the historical terms are assumed
to be zero. Therefore, an iterative calculation should be
applied until the peak cooling load calculations converge.
 Volume 0, Number 0, XXXX 2017
Usually, for heavy-weight thermal mass, this requires cal-
culations for several more days with steady periodic input
parameters to achieve convergence compared to the light-
weight thermal mass.
Finally, when using the TFM, the design engineers should
be aware of the method’s limitations in order to obtain the
reasonable peak sensible cooling load results.
CLTD/SCL/CLF
As new computer-based methods were being developed
during 1970s, manual and tabulated methods continued
to be updated and used because many HVAC engineers
could not justify the time and expense required by the new
computer methods. One such method, based on the princi-
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ples of TFM, was the CLTD/CLF, which was developed by
William Rudoy and Fernando Duran in 1974 at University
of Pittsburgh (Rudoy and Duran 1974). It included tabulated
results of controlled-variable tests summarized in ASHRAE
research project RP-138 for peak cooling load calculations.
The CLTD/CLF Method attempted to simplify the two-step
TFM and TETD/TA Method into a single-step technique,
which was later published in the 1977 ASHRAE Handbook
of Fundamentals (ASHRAE 1977). Eleven years later, in
1988, the CLTD/CLF Method was modified by Edward Sow-
ell at California State University who ran 200,640 simulations
to provide new tabulated values (Sowell 1988). That same
year, motivated by the limited wall and roof categories used in
the CLTD/CLF Method, Steven Harries and Faye McQuis-
ton proposed additional CTFs to cover more roof and wall
construction groups in ASHRAE research project RP-472 at
Oklahoma State University (Harries and McQuiston 1988).
In 1993, Jeffery Spitler at Oklahoma State University lead
the efforts to update the CLTD/CLF Method to become the
CLTD/SCL/CLF Method by introducing the term “Solar
Cooling Load (SCL)” for an improved solar heat gain cal-
culation through fenestration (Spitler et al. 1993). This new
CLTD/SCL/CLF Method was later incorporated into the
1993 ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals (ASHRAE
1993). As a one-step method, it relied on the CLTD, SCL, and
CLF tables to calculate cooling loads from exterior opaque
surfaces, fenestration as well as the occupancy, lighting, and
the equipment.
Different from the TFM, in the CLTD/SCL/CLF
Method, the principal material layers of walls and roofs were
further regrouped, which resulted in a reduced number of wall
and roof groups from which to choose.
In the CLTD/SCL/CLF Method, the sensible cooling
load is estimated by (ASHRAE 1997):
QCLT D/SCL/CLF = UA(CLT D). (5)
The tabulated CLTD needs to be adjusted if the actual out-
door and indoor conditions do not match with the default
conditions, which is calculated by (ASHRAE 1997):
For SI unit, CLT D = CLT DT + (25.5 − tr ) + (tm − 29.4),
(6)
5
For IP Unit, CLT D = CLT DT + (78 − tr ) + (tm − 85).
(7)
There are several limitations with the CLTD/SCL/CLF
Method:
r All the limitations of TFM are included in this method.
The tables of CLTD, SCL, and CLF were generated based
on the TFM. Once the cooling load was obtained by the
TFM, the values of CLTD, SCL, and CLF could then be
calculated by dividing the surface area and overall U-factor
for the tabulated wall and roof combination groups.
r There is less flexibility for users to change parameters. Dif-
ferent from the TFM, the principal material layers of walls
and roofs were further regrouped, from 41 wall groups and
42 roof groups reduced to 16 wall and 10 roof groups. In
addition, since all the tables are built in, it is difficult to
change parameters for cooling load calculations, such as
the exterior surface solar radiation and fenestration solar
model. In addition, solar radiation at the exterior surfaces
relied on the ASHRAE (1967) clear-sky model that uti-
lizes A, B, and C coefficients as the default according to
the available updates for CLTD/SCL/CLF Method at the
time it was published. Therefore, the 2009 clear-sky model
update was not implemented in the CLTD tables. Fur-
thermore, the fenestration solar model was based on SCs
and the published DSA coefficients. Therefore, the angular-
based solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) model was not
implemented in the published SCL tables.
In summary, the CLTD/SCL/CLF Method is quite easy-
to-use compared to other methods, which can shorten the
design time and save the design efforts and cost. However, as
a simplified method, the calculation accuracy is not as good
as the detailed methods (Mao 2016).
HBM
As mentioned previously, the earliest heat balance calcula-
tions using a thermal network, can be tracked back to 1958
for house modeling (Buchberg 1958). The complete heat bal-
ance equations were first implemented in energy simulation
programs, such as NBSLD, BLAST, and TARP (Hittle 1979;
Kusuda 1976; Sowell and Walton 1980; Walton 1983). In
1997, Curtis Pedersen and colleagues at the University of Illi-
nois further developed the HBM for load calculation using a
twelve-surface model, including four walls, four windows, one
roof, one skylight, one floor, and thermal mass, as shown in
Figure 3. Their published work included a complete descrip-
tion of the mathematical calculations for the heat balance
procedures (Pedersen et al. 1997). This HBM is considered
the most accurate method among all the methods (Fisher and
Spitler 2002; Pedersen et al. 1997; Smith 2011). It utilizes an
iterative procedure to perform the heat balance calculations
for the outside surfaces, wall conductions, and the inside sur-
faces as well as zone air, instead of using superposition and
calculating each cooling load component in the simplified
methods. Therefore, due to its complexity, a computer pro-
gram is required to solve the heat balance equations.
 6 Science and Technology for the Built Environment
Fig. 3. Schematic view of general heat balance zone (Adapted
from ASHRAE 2013).
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In 2001, the ASHRAE building load calculation toolkit
(LOADS Toolkits) was developed and distributed by
ASHRAE (Pedersen et al. 2001), which provided FORTRAN
source code, detailed documentation, and an executable file
for the heat balance calculations.
However, there are limitations in the ASHRAE LOADS
Toolkit Output. For example, the sensible cooling load pro-
duced by the ASHRAE LOADS Toolkit does not provide
a detailed breakdown of each component that contributes
to the total cooling load, which is useful for diagnosing the
results. In order to obtain a detailed output, the source code
would need to be modified, tested, and recompiled. Thereby,
a user-friendly interface is desired for people who are not code
developers to use.
RTSM
The most current simplified cooling load method is the RTSM
that was first developed in 1997. The RTSM is an improve-
ment over all previous simplified methods (Spitler et al. 1997).
In response to a research proposed by ASHRAE Technical
Committee TC 4.1, the RTSM was derived directly from,
but in a simpler manner than, the HBM. In the RTSM, the
1D time, varying heat conduction is calculated using a 24-
term periodic response factors (PRFs). The radiant portion
of hourly heat gains are converted to hourly cooling loads
using radiant time factors (RTFs). The convection portion of
heat gains directly contributes to the cooling load. In 2007,
the RTSM was improved by Nigusse and Spitler at Oklahoma
State University (Nigusse 2007; Nigusse and Spitler 2010).
The improved RTSM introduced conduction time series fac-
tors (CTSFs), which are a set of dimensionless factors that
can be determined by the PRFs divided by the U-factor, to
perform the dynamic conduction heat gain calculations.
For the walls and roofs, the conduction heat gain qθ can be
determined using the PRFs,

23
(qθ )RT SM = A YP j (te,θ− jδ − tr ), (8)
j=0
or using the CTSFs,

23
(qθ )RT SM = c j UA(te,θ− jδ − tr ). (9)
j=0
The RTSM utilizes two sets of the RTFs to convert all heat
gains into the cooling loads, which are the solar RTFs and the
nonsolar RTFs. The beam solar heat gain is assumed to be
distributed on the floor only, while other types of heat gains
are distributed uniformly to the interior surfaces, including
the radiative portion of conduction heat gains and internal
heat gains as well as diffuse solar radiation heat gains. There-
fore, the solar RTFs are applied to the beam solar heat gains
while the nonsolar RTFs are applied onto the diffuse solar
radiation heat gains and the radiative portion of other types
of heat gains to calculate the cooling loads, which gives,
(Qr,θ )RT SM = r0 qr,θ + r1 qr,θ−1 + r2 qr,θ−2
+ r3 qr,θ−3 + · · · + r23 qr,θ−23 . (10)
In addition, in the RTSM, the window solar heat gain cal-
culation model was also improved using an angular SHGC
instead of the original SC. These two fenestration solar heat
gain calculation models are shown in Figure 4.
In the first fenestration solar heat gain model, the transmit-
tance and absorptance of beam and diffuse solar radiation are
determined by DSA coefficients, which are used to calculate
the transmitted solar heat gain factor (TSHGF) and absorbed
solar heat gain factor (ASHGF), respectively. The total fen-
estration solar heat gains can be obtained accordingly using
solar heat gain factors, SC, and glazing area. In the second
fenestration solar heat gain model, instead of default DSA
coefficients, the angular SHGC is used to calculate the beam
and diffuse solar heat gains. As one improvement, the glass
properties are input as variables based on the solar incidence
angle at different times of the day. Also, by introducing the
indoor attenuation coefficient (IAC), the interior shading that
was not considered in the first model is now covered in the
calculation (Nigusse and Spitler 2010). Therefore, the total
solar heat gains can be determined by multiplying the solar
heat gains, IAC, and the glazing area. By contrast, the SC is
defined by normal incidence SHGC divided by 0.87, which is
a fixed value for each type of glass.
Differences between the five methods
For a typical building during cooling conditions, different
types of sensible heat gains can enter a space. In general,
the convective heat gains directly impact the space sensible
cooling load, while, the radiative heat gains must first be
absorbed by the interior structures and then transferred by
convection to the zone air in the space after a time delay, as
shown in Figure 5.
In short, the five building peak cooling load methods are
differentiated by their cooling load calculation procedures for
building opaque surfaces and the fenestration models that
 Downloaded by [RMIT University Library] at 05:29 09 December 2017

Fig. 4. Relationship and connections between the two fenestration solar heat gain calculation models used by the RTSM.

7
 8 Science and Technology for the Built Environment
Fig. 5. Peak cooling load method comparison (Adapted from
ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals2 ).
were adopted by the methods. Two ways are used to catego-
rize the methods. One is based on the degree of simplification,
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while the other one relies on the number of the steps to achieve
the cooling load calculation.
Regarding the degree of simplification, the HBM is consid-
ered the “detailed method,” while the other four are regarded
as the “simplified methods.” The HBM contains equation-
based descriptions for each essential calculation process. By
contrast, the simplified methods hide the corresponding equa-
tions behind the tabulated factors, for instance, TETD, CTFs,
WFs, CLTD, SCL, CLF, CTSFs, and RTFs.
In light of the calculation steps, as one-step methods, the
HBM and the CLTD/SCL/CLF Method directly calculate
the building peak sensible cooling load. To accomplish this,
the HBM uses an iterative analysis, while, the CLTD/SCL/
CLF depends on the CLTD, SCL, and CLF tables to cal-
culate cooling loads from wall/roof conduction heat gains,
fenestration solar heat gains, and internal heat gains.
The remaining three methods are two-step methods. In
general, for these methods, all types of sensible heat gains
have to be determined in the first step. Different methods rely
on the different factors to calculate the heat gains through the
opaque surfaces while the fenestration and internal heat gain
calculations remain the same. For example, the TETD/TA
method uses the TETD tables to perform the wall/roof
one-dimensional transient conduction calculations, whereas
the TFM uses the CTFs, and the RTSM relies on the PRFs or
the CTSFs for the calculations. Second, all sensible heat gains
need to be converted into the space sensible cooling load.
In the TETD/TA method, this is accomplished by applying
the time-averaging process to mimic the dynamic thermal
changes. The summation of all time-averaged sensible heat
gains yield the total sensible cooling load. Whereas, the TFM
depends on the WFs for the calculations, and the RTSM
applies the RTFs.
Summary and conclusions
This study reviewed the five building peak cooling load meth-
ods that have been published by ASHRAE, and includes
a history of the methods and the procedures used in the
2 the formulas were implemented in energy simulation pro-
This diagram combines the information from 1997 and 2001
ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals.
methods. Four of these methods are considered simplified
methods, including the TETD/TA method, the TFM, the
CLTD/SCL/CLF method and the RTSM. All the methods
utilize a superposition principle to obtain the sensible cool-
ing load for a given space. The remaining HBM is a detailed
method that lays out the heat balance equations through the
entire heat transfer process of a twelve-surface model and per-
forms iterative calculations to converge on an answer.
Historically, the foundation of all the simplified methods
can be traced back to 1944 sol-air temperature method devel-
oped by Mackey and Wright. Around the same time, the ther-
mal R/C network started to arise, which was used to calculate
dynamic heat transfer through the building walls by Paschkis
(1942), to model the house by Linvill and Hess (1944), and by
Buchberg (1958). In Buchberg’s ASHRAE project, the heat
balance calculations were performed at each node of the ther-
mal network, which required one of the first analog computer
simulations.
During the same time period, the ETD tables were pub-
lished by Stewart (1948), based on Mackey and Wright’s
work, to calculate the dynamic heat gains through the walls
and roofs. This method helped formulate the TETD/TA
method that was later introduced in the 1967 ASHRAE
Handbook of Fundamentals. In this method, a decrement
factor and a time lag were used in the heat gain calculations
of the opaque surfaces. Later, the TETD/TA method added
a time-averaging (TA) process to improve the calculation of
the dynamic cooling load from multiple surfaces. However,
the representative time-averaging period was subjective.
Therefore, the experience and skills of the design engineer
were crucial to the calculation accuracy.
The thermal RFM was introduced in 1967 by Mitalas and
Stephenson, based on the previous work done by Nessi and
Nisolle (1925), Brisken and Reque (1956), and Hill (1957).
In 1972, ASHRAE Task Group published the TFM for cal-
culating dynamic heat transfer. Compared to the TETD/TA
method, the TFM used the CTFs and WFs for more accurate
heat gain and cooling load calculations, respectively. How-
ever, with pre-defined construction layer thermal properties
and limited wall and roof groups, the accuracy of this method
depends significantly on the proper user input and appropri-
ate factor adjustment in order to match the simulated building
as close as possible. Furthermore, iterative pre-calculations
needed to be performed under the same boundary conditions
to improve the convergence of the answer.
The TFM laid the basis for the CLTD/CLF method devel-
oped by Rudoy and Duran (1974). This was later modi-
fied by Sowell (1988), Harries (1988), McQuiston (1988),
and Spitler (1993) to become the CLTD/SCL/CLF method
by introducing the SCL term. Compared to the TFM, the
CLTD/SCL/CLF method further regrouped the wall and
roof types. Unfortunately, the same limitations of the TFM
remain in the CLTD/SCL/CLF method. Finally, since the
method relied on tabulated values, it left limited room for
users to change any of the pre-determined simulation input
parameters.
Early heat balance calculations appeared in the previously
mentioned thermal network analysis (Buchberg 1958). Later,
gram, including NBSLD, BLAST as well as TARP. In 1997,
 Volume 0, Number 0, XXXX 2017
the HBM was further developed for stand-alone load cal-
culation by Pedersen. Today, this method is regarded as the
most accurate method. Currently, the LOADS Toolkit, devel-
oped by ASHRAE, is the only published toolkit that pro-
vides the FORTRAN source code, detailed documentation,
and an executable file to run the simulation. Unfortunately,
the output from the LOADS Toolkit does not provide a
detailed breakdown of each cooling load component. In addi-
tion, the source code would need to be modified, tested and
recompiled before component-level cooling loads could be
obtained. Therefore, a user-friendly interface is highly desired
for those who are not code developers.
In 1997, Spitler et al. published the RTSM for dynamic
peak cooling load calculations, which was derived from the
HBM. Compared to the TETD/TA method and the TFM,
the RTSM used the PRFs and RTFs to perform the heat gain
Downloaded by [RMIT University Library] at 05:29 09 December 2017
and cooling load calculations, respectively. Ten years later,
an improved RTSM was proposed by Nigusse and Spitler in
2007. In this work, a set of dimensionless CTSFs were intro-
duced and the fenestration model was updated. The new fen-
estration model used the solar incidence angle-based SHGC
instead of older SC method. Today, the RTSM is considered
the most accurate simplified method,
The differences between the five methods can be found in
the procedures used to calculate sensible heat gains and cool-
ing loads for opaque surfaces. If additional time and cost are
allowed on a project, the tools, such as ASHRAE LOADS
Toolkit, that use the HBM algorithms should be used as it
provides the most accurate peak cooling load calculations.
Otherwise, one of the other simplified methods should be con-
sidered, whose accuracies are acceptable under certain cir-
cumstances. In some cases, there is a tradeoff between calcu-
lation accuracy and the degree of complexity of the methods.
Finally, the experience of design engineers is a significant fac-
tor for providing a reliable peak cooling load estimation.
Nomenclature
A = surface area, m2 in SI or ft2 in IP;
ASHGF = absorbed solar heat gain factor, W/m2 in
SI or Btu/(h- ft2 ) in IP;
BLAST = building load analysis and system ther-
modynamics program;
CLF = cooling load factor, dimensionless;
CLTD = cooling load temperature difference, °C
in SI or °F in IP;
CTFs = conduction transfer functions;
CTSFs = conduction time series factors;
CLTDT = tabulated CLTD, °C in SI or °F in IP;
c j = conduction time series factor (CTSFs),
dimensionless;
DF = decrement factor, dimensionless;
DSA = double-strength sheet glass;
ETD = equivalent temperature differentials;
HBM = heat balance method;
NBSLD = national bureau of standards load deter-
mination program;
PRFs = periodic response factors;
(Qθ )T F M = cooling load by TFM Method, W in SI
or Btu/h in IP;
9
QCLT D/SCL/CLF = cooling load by CLTD/SCL/CLF
Method, W in SI or Btu/h in IP;
(Qr,θ )RT SM = cooling load by RTSM, W in SI or Btu/h
in IP;
Qθ −δ = cooling load at time θ − δ, W in SI or
Btu/h in IP;
Qθ −2δ = cooling load at time θ − 2δ, W in SI or
Btu/h in IP;
qT ET D/TA = wall and roof conduction heat gains by
TETD/TA Method, W in SI or Btu/h in
IP;
(qe,θ )T F M = wall and roof conduction heat gains by
TFM, W in SI or Btu/h in IP;
(qθ )RT SM = wall and roof conduction heat gains by
RTSM, W in SI or Btu/h in IP;
qθ = heat gain at time θ , W in SI or Btu/h in
IP;
qθ−δ = heat gain at time θ − δ, W in SI or Btu/h
in IP;
qθ−2δ = heat gain at time θ − 2δ, W in SI or
Btu/h in IP;
qr,θ−n = radiant heat gain n hours ago, n =
0,1,2, …23, W in SI or Btu/h in IP;
qe,θ−nδ = heat gain through walls or roofs, at time
θ − nδ, W in SI or Btu/h in IP;
RFM = response factor method;
RTSM = radiant time series method;
RTFs = room transfer functions or radiant time
factors;
r0 , r1 , …, r23 = radiant time factors, dimensionless;
SCL = solar cooling load, W/m2 in SI or
Btu/(h- ft2 ) in IP;
SC = shading coefficient, dimensionless;
SHGC = solar heat gain coefficient, dimensionless;
TA = time averaging;
TARP = thermal analysis research program;
TETD = total equivalent temperature difference,
°C in SI or °F in IP;
TFM = transfer function method;
TGER = ASHRAE task group on energy require-
ments;
TSHGF = transmitted solar heat gain factor, W/m2
in SI or Btu/(h- ft2 ) in IP;
tea = daily average sol-air temperature, °C in
SI or °F in IP;
ti = indoor air temperature, °C in SI or °F in
IP;
te,T L = sol-air temperature at time lag (TL)
hours ago, °C in SI or °F in IP;
te,θ−nδ = sol-air temperature at time θ − nδ, °C in
SI or °F in IP;
te,θ− jδ = sol-air temperature at time θ − jδ, °C in
SI or °F in IP;
tr = indoor room temperature, °C in SI or °F
in IP;
tm = mean outdoor temperature, °C in SI or
°F in IP;
U = overall heat transfer coefficient, W/ (m2 -
K) in SI or Btu/(h-ft2 -°F) in IP;
WF = weighting factors;
 10
θ = current hour, h;
δ = time interval, h;
n = summation index, dimensionless;
bn , cn = conduction transfer function coefficients,
W/(m2 -K) in SI or Btu/(h-ft2 -°F) in IP;
dn = conduction transfer function coefficients,
dimensionless;
ν0 , ν1 , ν2 , w1 , w2 = room transfer function coefficients
(weighting factors), dimensionless;
YP j = periodic response factor (PRFs),
W/(m2 -K) in SI or Btu/(h-ft2 -°F) in
IP.
Acknowledgments
Downloaded by [RMIT University Library] at 05:29 09 December 2017
The authors would like to give special thanks to Profes-
sor Daniel E. Fisher at Oklahoma State University, who
kindly and patiently answered many questions regarding the
ASHRAE RP-1117, and for providing all the related files and
source code to complete this work.
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