| Title |
Emulation-based Evaluation of the Control Performance for Room Air Temperature in a Radiant Floor Heating System |
| Authors |
Rhee Kyu-Nam ; Yeo Myoung-Souk ; Kim Kwang-Woo |
| Keywords |
Radiant Floor Heating System ; Emulation ; Emulator ; Control Performance ; Performance Evaluation |
| Abstract |
This study presents the emulation-based evaluation of the control performance for a radiant floor heating system. Since room air temperature is dependent on heat output, which is determined by the pressure loss and flow rate in hydronic network, the interaction between thermal and hydraulic models need to be considered in the evaluation of the control performance. To do this, this study suggests an emulation method, or hardware-in-the-loop-simulation (HILS), where the hydronic network is replaced by real hardware and the building physics is analyzed by a Simulink-based simulation. In the emulation, the pressure loss and flow rate in the hydronic network were represented by replacing the real pipe with a balancing valve. In addition, by making real control systems connect hydronic network and building simulation, the interaction between building physics (room air temperature), control system (control valve) and hydronic network (hot water flow rate) can be taken into account in the evaluation. Based on the proposed emulation method, the control performance of several control strategies were evaluated in terms of the accuracy and rise time. The result shows that the individual control needs to be combined with hydronic balancing for more accurate control. Hydronic control devices such as a flow limit valve and a pressure differential control valve also proved to be helpful to the improvement of the control performance. |