Design of a Control System on the HVAC

Damper to Regulate Temperature

and Humidity in the Isolation Room

M. Salamul Fajar Sabri, Samsul Rizal, Rudi Kurniawan,

Rachmad Almi Putra, and Suheri Suheri

Abstract Most infectious diseases are caused by viruses that are spread from one
person to another through the air. Isolation room is a room that keeps virus in infected
people from spreading to other people by maintaining temperature and humidity.
Therefore, a system is needed that regulates the isolation room to remain sterile,
where this system must control and maintain the stability of air circulation in the
room. For this purpose, this study proposes the design of an automated control
system to regulate the temperature and humidity in an isolated room by controlling
the supply air with damper. The method that is used in making this control system
is experimental and analysis from sensor readings that will be used as a sign of
decision-making for the damper output that will control the air flow to the isolation
room with closed loop algorithm for the system control, the controller will send
digital signal to the damper relay based on sensor reading, so that the data results
of the experiment and analysis can see whether the control system can work well or
not. The successful performance of the control system is seen from results of sensor
readings; when the system changed the damper position it can maintain the isolation
room situation around 22 °C to 24 °C for temperature and 50% until 60% for the
humidity.

M. Salamul Fajar Sabri

Master of Mechanical Engineering Program, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Syiah Kuala,
Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
e-mail: salamul@mhs.unsyiah.ac.id
S. Rizal (B) · R. Kurniawan
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, FacultyofEngineering, Universitas Syiah
Kuala, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
e-mail: samsul.rizal@usk.ac.id
R. Kurniawan
e-mail: kurniawan@usk.ac.id
R. A. Putra · S. Suheri
Doktoral Program, Faculty ofEngineering, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh 23111, Indonesia
e-mail: Rachmad.almi@unsam.ac.id
S. Suheri
e-mail: suheri@unsam.ac.id

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 233
Irwansyah et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on
Experimental and Computational Mechanics in Engineering, Lecture Notes in
Mechanical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7495-5_23
234 M. Salamul Fajar Sabri et al.

Keywords Damper control · Control system · Isolation room · HVAC

1 Introduction

Infectious diseases are the result of various factors, such as viruses and other para-
sites, that can spread from one person to another through the air. Some of the infec-
tious diseases that are transmitted through the air are pneumonia, acute respira-
tory infection (ARI), tuberculosis (TB), influenza, varicella, severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS), and COVID-19. [1–4]. In general, sufferers of the disease are
advised to avoid contact with other people, or better known as self-isolation. Only
some sufferers of the disease can receive intensive medical treatment in health facil-
ities such as hospitals. Patients with the disease are treated in an infectious disease
isolation room. Isolation rooms are generally used for the treatment of patients with
airborne infectious diseases, these isolation rooms have a temperature of 18 °C–26 °C
and have a lower pressure (negative pressure) to keep the room sterile [5, 6]. The air
flow in the isolation room is generally controlled so that it does not mix with the air
in the surrounding room. Some of the parameters that are set in the isolation room
are temperature, pressure, ventilation, and humidity, even though these parameters
have been set with optimal settings in the isolation room. Therefore, some system
is needed that controls the isolation room to remain sterile, where this system must
keep humidity and temperature by maintaining stable air pressure, temperature, air
velocity, and circulation in the room that is called the HVAC system (heating venti-
lating and air conditioning) [7]. HVAC is a system that functions to regulate air flow
so that the temperature and humidity conditions in a room can be maintained and
the air in the room becomes comfortable [8, 9]. By adjusting the HVAC system both
on return air (RA), exhaust air (EA), and supply air (SA), it will affect the risk of
spreading the virus indoors by changes in the movement and direction of airflow
[10–12].
Several previous studies, simulations using CFD were carried out to analyze the
air flow in the isolation room, it helped to get the design of laying the air supply
and exhaust. In this study [13, 14], there were two models CFD simulation of air
flow conditions and air circulation in the HVAC system that were suitable for isola-
tion rooms. By placing an optimal air supply, it can improve the performance of the
air ventilation. To create air flow in the isolation room, it is necessary to place an
appropriate HVAC system but determining the placement of HVAC is not enough to
maximize the air condition in the isolation room, so it is necessary to do a control
system to regulate the amount of air that enters the isolation room. In this research
a control system will be designed to regulate the temperature and humidity in an
isolated room by using damper in the ducting as an air intermediary to the room.
Control systems are now starting to shift from manual control to automated systems
that require the use of computers, so that human intervention in controlling is very
small. When compared with manual work, computer-controlled equipment systems
Design of a Control System on the HVAC Damper to Regulate … 235

will provide advantages in terms of efficiency, safety, and accuracy. Computer capa-
bilities, both hardware and software, can be utilized for various control applications,
such as temperature control. This research used an experimental method to auto-
mate the control system that regulates the situation in the isolation room. It analyzed
the temperature change by controlling the damper in the ducting that supplied air
to the isolation room. For the system model that is used in this research is closed
loop, this model will work by looping the system for reading the sensor value and
makes decision continuously. With the closed loop system control, we can see the
successful performance of the control system from the results of sensor readings
when the system changed the damper position.

2 System Overview

To control the HVAC system for the isolation room, this study uses an air supply
setting by utilizing the damper to regulate the air flow in the duct and the output
temperature in the isolation room, where the optimal temperature environment in the
isolation room is between 18 °C and 26 °C [15–17], and for humidity among 40–60%
[15, 17, 18]. With setting the damper, it can reduce the air flow into the patient room
so that the air temperature in the room can be controlled. Isolation rooms usually
consist of the patient room, bathroom, anteroom, and waiting room, as shown in
Fig. 1. In testing the HVAC system control in the isolation room, this research was
only focused on the patient room where there are 2 air supplies located in the middle
of the room and 4 exhausts with 2 of them located near the patient’s head and the
other at the edge of the room. Damper changes that affect the isolation room are
damper no. 2, so this study will focus on the effect of setting control damper no. 2
on the situation of the isolation room.
To find out the control system is running well, some sensors are needed to see
the air output is change properly. We use temperature and humidity sensors to make
some parameters that needed to prove whether the system logic is working properly
to change the position of the damper in the duct. Temperature measurements were
carried out using a thermocouple type K, two of them placed at the diffuser that the
air supply comes out to the isolation room and another one located at the middle of
the isolation room to see the general temperature in the room. Thermocouple type
K is the most commonly used temperature sensor in industry, because it is quite
resistant to oxidation. Besides that, this thermocouple can also avoid low oxygen
or reduce the atmosphere (similar to vacuum condition). This thermocouple can
withstand temperatures from −270 °C to 1300 °C [19, 20] so the sensors can comply
the criteria for reading the temperature in the isolation room. For humidity sensor
we use HTM 2500, this sensor can read relative humidity from 10% until 99% with
accuracy ± 3% and this sensor can communicate with analog signal from 0 to 5
VDC [21]. The actuator motor that used for the damper is Honeywell CN4605, the
motor runtime is from 0 to 90° about 110 s with motor torque 5Nm [22]. To adjust all
236 M. Salamul Fajar Sabri et al.

Fig. 1 Isolation room sketch

dampers also read temperature and humidity sensors, a control system is designed
which basically can be seen in Fig. 2.
The controller is the center of the system which is where data processing is carried
out. From the diagram, the input data to the controller can be in the form of a command
from the user or an input data from humidity sensor or temperature sensor. Direct
commands from the user are an absolute communication for the controller repro-
gramming, program updates, and direct decision-making commands. Data received

Fig. 2 Basic system diagram

Design of a Control System on the HVAC Damper to Regulate … 237

Fig. 3 Experimental setup for system testing

from sensor readings will be processed by the controller as a reference for making
decision when the system runs automatically. The results of the processing decisions
will be continued to regulate the HVAC system in the isolation room in the form of
damper movement to change the air supply capacity.
The experimental setup of this study is shown in Fig. 3 where there are four
dampers that regulate air flow, damper 1 is a damper that goes to the toilet room
and entry room, damper no. 2 goes to the isolation room, damper 3 functions as a
regulator of the entry of fresh air, and the last damper is a damper that regulates air
circulation in the waiting room. Place the humidity sensor in the middle of the room.
For temperature sensors, there are three sensors, two of the temperature sensors are
placed on the diffuser, and another sensor is placed in the middle of the isolation room
to read the temperature of the entire room. In this experiment, the setup involves the
exhaust being turned off, and for the temperature at remote is 24 °C.

3 Control Algorithm

In designing a control system, the communication flow is important in the delivery

of data both as input and as output. In general, the signal on the controller is divided
into four, analog signal, discrete signal, sample data signal, and digital signal. In this
study, the signals used are analog signals and digital signals as shown in the flow
238 M. Salamul Fajar Sabri et al.

Fig. 4 Signal flow communication

diagram in Fig. 4, where the analog signals are used as sensor readings and digital
signals as HVAC regulator outputs.
The computer and the controller communicate through an Ethercat cable, which
enables fast and stable data transmission for programming and troubleshooting while
the system is running [23, 24]. The command digital signal is given to the damper,
where at the relay a voltage of 0 V is used to turn off/close the damper and 24 V to
activate the damper. The placement of the damper in the duct is adjusted to regulate
the air flow into the patient room, the placement of the damper can be seen in Fig. 2.
Meanwhile the thermocouple sensor sends information with an analog signal from
0 to 20 mV to the controller for reading the temperature in the isolation room. For
humidity sensor use analog signal from 0 to10 V for communication with controller.
In this research, the algorithm that used to adjust the damper is a closed loop
control system, where in this closed loop control makes the system continue to run
until the system is turned off. The close loop method of control system that has been
designed in the study can be seen in Fig. 5. When the initial declaration of the relay
that was given a 24 V signal is to the relay no. 2 and relay no. 3, from Fig. 2 it can
be seen that relay no. 2 is a relay damper that regulates air entry into the isolation
room, while relay no. 3 is a damper that regulates the entry of air from the outside
environment. Damper 1 and damper 4 are set in the closed position because this study
will focus on setting the damper for air entering the isolation room.
The decision-making on this system depends on the temperature value, so the
system will continuously read the temperature. In this control system, the cycle time
used for temperature readings continuously is at 10 ms/cycle so that the decisions on
the system can be made quickly. The temperature value in this study is set at 24 °C.
Design of a Control System on the HVAC Damper to Regulate … 239

Fig. 5 System flowchart

The decision for the damper signal will be made if the temperature is more or less
than the setup temperature.

4 Result and Discussion

In this section, we can see the condition of the isolation room when the control system
is working. The condition that can be adjusted in this control system is by opening
or closing the damper, so that the situation of the isolation room is divided into two
240 M. Salamul Fajar Sabri et al.

Fig. 6 Isolation room situation: a temperature, b humidity

conditions as shown in Fig. 6, where the condition is when the damper is opened or
when the damper is closed where with the results of the temperature and humidity
sensor readings we can see the difference between the two conditions of the isolation
room. When the controller gives signal 0 to the damper, the damper will be closed
so that the temperature condition in the room exceeds the desired temperature and
the humidity in the room also goes over 60% which is the value that has been set
for the isolation room. Meanwhile, when the damper is given a signal 1, the damper
is open which causes the room temperature to drop very significantly until 18 °C,
but in this condition the humidity value obtained is sufficient in accordance with
the criteria for the isolation room. The drop of the temperature when the damper is
open is caused by an error in the variable refrigerant flow (VRF) in the air condition.
These VRF faults contain temperature sensor faults, the system faults, and indoor
unit faults [25]. This can also be caused by thermostat overriding during demand
response events targeting the temperature in their air conditioners [26] (Fig. 7).
By using an automatic system control, the movement of the damper will change
according to the sensor readings so that the temperature and humidity conditions
will be maintained by the system with the parameters that have been made in the
system algorithm. The temperature and humidity ranges are in accordance with the
needs with temperatures below 24 °C and humidity between 50 and 60%. However,
during the transition at the time of decision-making, there are fluctuations that cause
the condition of the room to be unstable. This is due to the damper setting that just
can be done only by opening and closing for controlling the air flow, with these
limitations the results obtained are not stable.
Design of a Control System on the HVAC Damper to Regulate … 241

Fig. 7 Isolation room situation with control system: a temperature, b humidity

5 Conclusion

In this paper, we presented control system design that used to control the situation
of air flow in the isolation room by setting the air supply on the damper in the HVAC
system. The controller can receive data well from sensors to determine the condition
of the isolation room and for decision-making parameters on the system. Therefore,
the system control strategy for the isolation room that regulates changes in air flow
has been successful with evidence of changes in temperature and humidity sensors
according to the parameters needed when the system is running. Even though the
situation of isolation room is still unstable, this control system can maintain the
situation according to the needs required by the isolation room.

Funding This research was funded by Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (LPDP), managed
by Indonesian Science Fund (ISF): RISPRO/KI/B1/TKL/5/15448/2020; Syiah Kuala University:
370/UN11.2.1/PT.01.03/PNBP/2021).

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