Fire Hydrant Systems to Improve a Building’s Energy Efficiency and Fire Protection Capabilities

by Stephen Wright Building Management Solutions Software

Space cooling is among the highest energy expenses for buildings, especially during summers. Accurate heat load calculations have a direct impact on energy efficiency, indoor air quality, occupant comfort and building durability, as well as construction costs. All construction materials in buildings have a thermal capacitance and as such, the thermal mass of every construction assembly is included in the cooling load calculator and heat load calculations, including internal construction assemblies.

An oversized HVAC system will have both a higher initial cost and higher cost of operation. The frequent starting and stopping or short cycling can lead to premature failure of the equipment. That is why, heat load calculation and cooling load calculators become important for a full HVAC design. Cooling load calculator and heat load calculation provide a measure of the energy needed to be added or removed from a space by HVAC system. This provides desired level of comfort to the occupants within a space.

As walls of a room are made of various materials and sizes, the software has a wide variety of walls predefined within it, and dimensions of walls can be directly calculated from AutoCAD software drawings. HVAC designers can enter the project information which is common throughout a building and default conditions for the rooms can be easily overridden. Here, we briefly describe the key features of the most commonly used heat load calculation, cooling load calculator, and fire hydrant software solutions by building engineers in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world.

CAMEL air conditioning load estimation and psychometrics software

The computer program CAMEL by leading building services design software provider company ACADS-BSG, calculates design heating and cooling loads and associated psychometrics for air conditioning plants in buildings. CAMEL cooling load calculator calculates chiller, AHU, zone, and room loads. It also determines air quantities, boiler, zone, and room heating loads, reheat quantities with and without coil reset, and room temperatures. It models a range of system types including:

• Constant volume heating and cooling
• VAV with and without reheat
• Reverse cycle heat pumps
• Evaporative coolers

The computer program caters for overhangs complete with drop panels and reveals on both windows and walls. Shading on roofs and from adjacent buildings can also be modelled in the software. Drop panels, balconies, light wells, and other shading schemes can be modelled by CAMEL heat load calculator. The shadow pattern of these devices can be viewed as they traverse any selected wall or roof as the time and month varies.

Other key features of CAMEL heat load calculation software are as under:

• The program performs an hourly cooling load analysis, taking account of thermal storage, on a design day in each month of the year.
• Specific monthly 3 pm design dry and wet bulb temperatures are available in CAMEL cooling load calculator for over 600 locations in Australia, and for many offshore locations.
• The computer program carries out a psychometric analysis of each AHU with the coil performance expressed as a bypass factor, leaving coil temperature or nominated air quantity fixed bypass and dump back systems.
• Graphical display is provided within CAMEL cooling load calculator for scheduled, shading schemes, and for each external wall of roof as it is entered, providing a convenient visual check for the user.
• A summary screen in CAMEL cooling load calculator enables reviewing the input and copy, moving, and deleting AHUs, zones, and rooms.
• Comprehensive help is available on every screen and for each input in CAMEL cooling load calculator.
• A comprehensive set of results from CAMEL cooling load calculator which includes summary tables of loads and air quantities, load charts, tables of check figures.
• The results viewing and printing screen of CAMEL heat load calculation software provides for selection of various tables, load charts and summaries, both in viewing and printing modes.

SPRINK2000 fire hydrant software

The fire hydrant software SPRINK2000 by ACADS-BSG can be used to analyse automatic fire sprinkler systems with a simple end, side or centre-fed configuration, or more complicated looped and gridded systems designed specifically for use in North America. The computer program can also be used to analyse fire hydrant and hose reel installations, or combined sprinkler, hydrant and/or hose reel systems or any other systems where the discharge can be represented by a K factor and minimum flow.

Other key features of SPRINK2000 fire hydrant software include:

• The piping system in SPRINK2000 fire hydrant system can have up to 10 input points that can be modelled as a fixed pressure, a town mains water supply, or a pump.
•  All nodes that are not nominated as discharges or input points are automatically assigned as reference nodes to save input.
• Piping materials complying with a wide range of materials are catered to by CAMEL2000 including medium and heavy steel, cast ductile iron, and copper piping.
• When pipe sizes are entered as nominal sizes, SPRINK2000 fire hydrant system determined the actual I.D. from data stored in the computer program for different pipe materials.
• The program can be used to determine the design point, given the K factor and minimum discharge of each sprinkler head or hose reel.
• A graphical display of the grid is provided where the user can choose the display pipe numbers, node numbers, pipe diameters or lengths.
• The results of SPRINK2000 fire hydrant software include a summary of the flows and pressure for all discharges and for all input points, followed by a detailed table of pipe information, including the total equivalent length and pressure drop for every pipe in the system, and a detailed table of Node information.

Other useful building services software provided by ACADS-BSG include HYENA for automatic fire sprinkler or hydrant analysis, KOALA which provides a simplified building air conditioning load estimation, PYTHON for design of water piping system for air conditioning, LLAMA for lift design for commercial buildings, and many more.

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Created on Jul 8th 2021 02:18. Viewed 358 times.

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