University of Bahrain

College of engineering
Department of architecture and interior design
ARCG 226 – Environmental System II

HVAC BUILDING
SIMULATION USING
EQUSET PROGRAM

Instructor: Dr. Sayed Mohsen Alalawi

Section 02

20123418 Jalila Sayed Mohsen

20194210 Haya Abdulla Yusuf Alkaabi
20193727 Maryam Yahya Hasan Seyadi
2019**** Taif Mohammed

1
 Executive Summary

The goal of this project is to explain the weather of Lake City, Florida, in the
United
States, which features weather that is like that of Bahrain.

To begin, our structure is a two-story office building with a total area of 2800
m2 and 1400 m2 per story. Only the cooling load was calculated. We chose a T-
shaped structure with two main outside entrances on the north and west sides, as
well as one fire escape door on the south side. We installed a single type of glass
for the entire structure (triple clear argon 3003 windows). In whatever orientation,
the windows that are not colored account for half of the total wall area.

The building is open from Sunday to Thursday during working hours. The
building, however, is open from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. During these periods, 85
percent of the total number of occupants are present in the building. The building is
closed on weekends and public holidays. The ventilation system is a typical VAV
system.

The building's cooling set-point temperature is 22° C, while the air handling
unit supplies air at 12° C. One hour before occupancy, the supply fans are turned
on, and one hour after occupancy, they are turned off. In our building, we use dry-
bulb temperature as an economizer. For the chiller, we picked Electric reciprocating
hermetic.

2
Table of Contents
Executive Summary..............................................................................................................................................................2
Section One: Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................4
Introduction......................................................................................................................................................................4
Assumptions.....................................................................................................................................................................4
Section two: Data Collection................................................................................................................................................5
HVAC Building Simulation Using eQUEST Program....................................................................................................6
Results............................................................................................................................................................................17
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................................................22

3
 Section One: Introduction

Introduction

HVAC, which stands for "Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning", and is a
system designed to meet the environmental requirements for the comfort of
occupants. They are employed in many structures such as industrial, commercial,
residential and institutional buildings. HVAC, simulate is also categorized into
central and residential systems according to multiple regions, locations, and
distributions. Primary HVAC systems include central heating, ventilation, and air
conditioning systems away from buildings in a highly centralized equipment room
and providing conditioned air through a duct system. In addition, it includes all air
systems, from air to water, and finally all water systems. For this final project, a
program (eQUEST) will be used to simulate the results of energy use in buildings
that are easy to use and produce professional-level results at a very modest cost. It
provides the user with simple wizards that guide him through the development of a
model with various features. (eQUEST) and other simulation tools are commonly
used by the project planning team as a tool to give an assessment of the energy use
impacts related to other specific planning options.

Assumptions

Acquiring knowledge from the course beneficial to this final project, we can presume
the following assumptions:
➢ Selecting efficient windows helps alleviate the cooling load of the building.
➢ Use low-solar-transmittance glazing to reduce cooling loads reducing solar gain.
➢ Adding a shading device will help in reducing the cooling load due to its merit of
reducing building heat gain and cooling essentials, while also it will help in
improving the natural lighting quality.
➢ Buildings that are made of stone, bricks, or concrete, can make it feel cooler
thanks to the high resistance of these materials: their ability to absorb and release heat
slowly, thereby smoothing temperatures over time, making daytime cooler and
nighttime warmer.

4
 Section two: Data Collection

This chapter will tackle about the use of the eQUEST program version 3.65 to
simulate building energy use results to determine the best solution to energy
conservation and sustainability. To do a comparative analysis, the students were
given the task to run five different parametric runs with the following parameters:
Run 1: Base-Case Run
Run 2: Replacing the windows with more efficient ones
Run 3: Reducing 30% of the window area from East and West orientations
Run 4: Adding shading devices to windows
Run 5: Combination of parameters 2, 3, and 4

The students were given the task to simulate the HVAC system of a two-story
building with a total building area of 30,000 ft2.
They were given the option to select the following inputs of their choice with certain
conditions:
▪ One city in the United States
▪ Building orientation
▪ Foot-print shape of the building
▪ Wall, floor, and ceiling constructions suitable for Bahrain
▪ Two different types of doors with suitable door constructions
o Sliding main door
o Fire escape doors in all orientations
▪ One type of window in all orientations

In selecting the city, the students chose lake city, Florida as their location, as it
is known to have a similar climate to Bahrain. Hence, the building design was based
heavily responding to the chosen site.
The following screenshot images show the step-by-step process for simulating the
base-case run on the eQUEST 3.65 program.

5
 HVAC Building Simulation Using eQUEST Program
1.) Run the program for Lake city, Florida with the required weather file downloaded from
(PUT the file weather:
▪ Building Area: 30,000 ft2
▪ Number of Floors: 2
▪ Cooling Equipment: Chilled water-cooling coils
▪ Heating Equipment: Electric resistance

2.) Select the foot-print shape and orientation of your choice.

▪ Each floor is one zone.
▪ Each floor has an area of 15,000 ft2

Figure 2 Choose the ‘T’ shape for the Building

6
3.) Choose wall, floor, and ceiling constructions that are suitable for Bahrain.
The following inputs were made based on the Guidelines for Thermal Insulation Implementation in Buildings handbook
provided by the Electricity & Water Authority
(https://www.ewa.bh/en/Conservation/Electricity/Documents/GuidelinesThermalInsulationImp.pdf )

7
4.) Select at least two types of doors: one sliding main door and one for fire escape doors in all directions.

5.) Select one type of window (unshaded) for the whole building in all orientations. The windows occupy 50% of the
wall area in any orientation. Window height is 8 ft and sill height is 2 ft. There are no skylights.

8
9
6.) Input the lighting load

10
7.) The building is operated during weekdays from Sunday to Thursday. It is closed on holidays and weekends. The
college opens at 8:00 am and closes at 7:00 pm. During this time, the building is occupied with 85% of the total amount
of occupancy.

11
8.) Select standard VAV system with reheat for the air distribution system. The air return is through the plenum. Set
the cooling set-point temperature to 21°C. All other default data inputs must be kept as they are.

12
9.) Set the fan schedules: supply fans are operated one hour before occupancy and switched off after one hour after
occupancy.

13
10.) Use dry-bulb temperature economizer for the building.

14
11.) Select the chiller type as electric reciprocating hermetic and condenser as package aircooled. All other default data
inputs must be kept as they are

12.) Select the source of energy for the domestic hot water heaters as electricity.

15
16
Results

17
4. Parametric Analysis Runs:
No. Parameter Original Load New Load % of Reduction

1 Remove 30% of 26.63 22.48 Decrease by

the windows 15.58%
from
East and West
orientation.
2 Tilt the building 26.63 27.16 Increase by
90 degree 1.99%
clockwise.
3 Replace the 26.63 25.04 Decrease by
windows 5.97%
with more
efficient ones
Table 1 The parameters where take study on it

For Parameter #1:

For Parameter #2:

For Parameter #3:

18
19
Remove 30% of the windows
from East and West orientation

Tilt the Building 90

degree clockwise

20
Replace the windows
with more efficient ones
https://www.stanekwindows.com/doe
s-energy-efficient-window-glass-
help-with-hvac-
costs.aspx#:~:text=Coupled%20with
%20Low%2DE%20coating,and%20
argon%20gas%20is%20added

21
 Conclusion

In conclusion, removing 30% of the windows from east (E) and west (W) will
affected the load and it decreased it by almost 16% from the original load.
However, tilting the building 90 degree clockwise will affect the original load by
significant change (increase by 2%). Finally, replace the windows with more
efficient one will decrease the original load by 6%. All these parameters is very
important in HVAC design, due to find as possible as efficient it is necessary to
take in mind theses parameters.

Figure 1:Image above: Section profile showing the wall construction layers

22
6. Appendix A:

Figure 6 Original Building

23
Figure 7 Tilt building by 90 degree

24
Figure 8 30% removing of window

Figure 9 2-D sketch of Building

25
26
27