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Supply Fan Control for Constant Air Volume Air Handling Units

YoungHum Cho Gang Wang Mingsheng Liu

Professor of Architectural
Graduate Student Research Associate Professor
Engineering, PhD, PE
Energy Systems Laboratory,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1110 So. 67th St, Omaha, NE 68182

Abstract required design size when the HVAC systems design.

Since terminal boxes do not have a modulation This results in major fan power waste.
damper in constant volume (CV) air handling unit The following is the possible solution for how to
(AHU) systems, zone reheat coils have to be solve these issues and control supply fan in the current
modulated to maintain the space temperature with CV systems. The best way to control supply fan is an
constant supply airflow. This conventional control installation of terminal box and modulate airflow with
sequence causes a significant amount of reheat and VFDs on AHUs. In this way, the system should be
constant fan power under partial load conditions. changed from CV system to VAV system. This method
Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) can be installed on will be able to control adequate supply fan speed under
these constant air volume systems. The fan speed can partial load conditions. However, this method needs
be modulated based on the maximum zone load. This high installation and labor fees. Another way is an
paper presents the procedure to control the supply fan installation of the VFD on CV system and set the fan
speed and analyzes the thermal performance and major speed. In this method, the system will not change and
fan energy and thermal energy savings without does not need high installation and labor fees. The cost
expensive VAV retrofit through the actual system of using VFD is much higher than changing the pulley;
operation. however, it can allow accurate airflow adjustment.
Consequently, using a VFD is a potential solution to
Introduction control supply fan without system change and any
In constant volume (CV) systems, all delivered air retrofit fee. Fan energy and both the heating and
is cooled to satisfy the maximum zone cooling load cooling energy savings can potentially increase.
with constant speed fans. Air delivered to other zones Few engineers recognize the advantage and
is then reheated with heating coils in individual zone requirement of VFD. Phillips (2004) tested the VFD
ducts. In ASHRAE Handbook, CV systems are energy usage. The data showed a 72 % energy savings
generally limited to applications with fixed ventilation and the payback on the VFD is 1.44 year and VFDs
needs, such as hospitals and special processes or can help lower maintenance costs. Miller (2002)
laboratories; nevertheless, CV systems are widely used showed the minimum application requirement and said
in a lot of old office buildings because these systems contemporary VFDs are more reliable, cost effective
can be easily controlled and have simple mechanical and more capabilities. Currently, in CV system, the
equipment. supply fan controls with a fixed VFD speed by a rule
However, there are issues in current CV systems. of thumb. But, VFD speed can not adjust under partial
One issue is each zone has variable zone load. The CV load conditions due to lack of the capability of
system uses conditioned air from AHU generally at a changing the airflow. Therefore, dynamic airflow
fixed cold air temperature to meet the maximum adjustment using VFD on CV system should be studied.
cooling load. Reheat is added to the discharge air in The objective of this study is that existing CV
each zone to match the cooling capacity to the current system will not change VAV system and how to get the
zone load. The result is very high thermal energy use. largest benefits from minimum investments by only
Another issue is the reheat energy can be reduced if the installing VFD. This paper presents the issues of
supply air temperature from the AHU can be varied. applied building with conventional CV systems,
However, the supply air temperature has to be develops a procedure how to control supply fan using
maintained at design value for the humidity control VFD on current CV system to solve these issues, and
when the outside air humidity ratio is high. Significant applies to the actual building. The energy consumption
reheat energy is consumed unnecessarily due to of conventional and improved supply fan controls were
humidity control requirement. The other issue is compared using measured data.
normally the supply fan chooses bigger size than

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Building and Facility information Figure 2 shows a schematic diagram for the
section plan of Building III. Each AHU serves each
The applied building complex, located in Omaha, floor. There is no terminal box and modulating damper.
Nebraska, was built in the late 1960s and composed of Each zone has reheat coils to maintain room air
building III, II and I. The 12-story building III, 8-story temperature for unequal loading. The AHU schematic
building II and 4-story building I are used as an office diagram is shown in Figure 3.
building complex with total area of 489,000 square
feet, which is served by AHUs with VFD. Each system Return Mechanic
Air
is a typical multi-zone CV system without terminal box. room

The typical office hour is from 8:00am to 5:00pm

T
during the weekdays. Figure 1 shows a schematic
Filter
diagram of the AHUs serving area layout. Two typical Outside T T C.C. T P
SF
T Supply
Air Air
AHUs, located at the interior zone (AHU 7A) and VFD
exterior zone (AHU 8), were chosen in this study. Figure 3. Schematic diagram of AHU
AHU 24
Procedure for supply fan control using VFD
Building III
AHU 13 AHU 6
Most of this energy waste can be avoided by
simply installing a VFD on the fan without a major
AHU 15

AHU 8

AHU 14A AHU 7A retrofit effort. The following is the procedure for the
AHU 14B AHU 7B optimal supply fan speed.
Building II
AHU 2A AHU 3A Interior zone
Interior zone load profile in an office building is
AHU 4A
AHU 4B

AHU 3B
AHU 2B normally not too variable because there is no influence
AHU 3C
AHU 2C on the outside air conditions and similar heat gains.
Building I Cooling load for interior zones considers total sensible
AHU 1A
cooling load due to heat gains by people, lighting and
office equipment conditioned spaces.
The supply fan speed for interior zone is typically
AHU 1B
optimized to be the following:
Figure 1. AHUs serving area layout
! Identify the maximum load ratio for the AHU
To identify the building load ratio for an AHU,
Relief Fan Relief air
room air temperature, supply air temperature and
H H H H
discharge air temperature should be measured daily.
LEVEL 11
After measuring room conditions of each floor, choose
H H H H
LEVEL 10 the highest (zone B) and lowest load zone (zone A) of
LEVEL 9
H H H H
each zone as shown in Figure 4. The building load ratio
H H H H can be calculated by the following equation:
LEVEL 8
Tr − TDA
LEVEL 7
H H H H
α= (1)
LEVEL 6
H H H H Tr − TSA
Return air shaft

H H H H 80
LEVEL 5
Tr (zone A )
H H H H 75
LEVEL 4
Temperature (F)

Tr (zone B)
H H H H 70
LEVEL 3
TDA (zone A)
H H H H 65
LEVEL 2

H H H H 60
LEVEL 1 TDA (zone B)
H H H H
55
PLAZA
LEVEL TSA
50
LOWER AHU 7B Return AHU 8
AHU 6 AHU 7A
LEVEL air 8:00 9:30 11:00 12:30 14:00 15:30 17:00
Time
Figure 2. Section plan of the East of Building III
Figure 4. Measured data for building load ratio

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Figure 5 shows the calculated load ratio graph by Exterior zone

equation (1) to determine the supply fan speed. The
graph shows zone A and B have different load ratios. Exterior zone load profile in office building will be
Even though zone B has maximum load, it still wastes variable by the outside air conditions but internal heat
reheat energy because of high airflow ratio. The supply gains are similar to interior zone loads.
air temperature from central units provided to be The supply fan speed for the exterior zone is
maintained at design value (55 °F) for the humidity determined by the following:
control, but discharge air temperature increased to
maintain room conditions by reheat coil. Therefore, the ! Calculate design condition and determine the
reheat energy will be able to be reduced by increasing optimal fan speed
load ratio. There are two ways to increase the load ratio.
Calculate the design airflow based on the real heat
One way is an increase of the supply air temperature gains data such as U value of the wall and window,
(TSA). However, this method may have a humidity solar heat gain, lights, appliances and people. All
issue. Another way is a decrease of the discharge air referenced data are based on the ASHRAE
temperature (TDA) by reducing airflow ratio. Fundamentals Handbook.
1.0

Maximum load ratio (zone B) ! Determine the optimal fan speed

0.8 Based on the above calculation, the supply fan
speed ratio was calculated by different outside air
Load ratio

0.6
temperatures from 40°F to 100°F. During heating
period, the fan speed has minimum fan speed like
0.4
terminal box minimum airflow ratio.
If the system works continuously 24 hours and 7
0.2
Minimum load ratio (zone A) days, the fan speed will have 3 different modes:
0.0
occupied hours at weekday daytime, unoccupied hours
8:00 9:30 11:00 12:30 14:00 15:30 17:00 at weekend daytime and unoccupied hours at weekday
Time night time. VFD speed was modulated to maintain the
Figure 5. Calculated zone load ratio graph supply fan speed at its set point. Figure 7 shows the
determined supply fan speed ratio with 3 different
! Develop/implement the optimal fan speed modes.
100
Develop the supply fan speed set point based on
the previous maximum load ratio and modulate the 80
Supply fan speed(%)

VFD to maintain the supply fan speed at its set point.

Figure 6 shows the determined fan speed ratio based on 60
the maximum load ratio. To verify this control, select
critical zones like furthest zone and highest load zone 40 .

from AHU and measure the room air condition.

20 weekday occupied load ratio
1.0 Weekday unoccupied and weekend night load ratio
Fan speed set point weekend daytime load ratio
0
0.8 30 50 70 90 110
Outside air temperature(F)

0.6 Figure 7. Supply fan speed ratio for dynamic VFD

Load ratio

speed
0.4
! Implement the optimal fan speed
0.2 Implement the supply fan speed set point based
on the pervious determined set point. Also, measure
0.0 the room air condition to verify this control. Figure 8
8:00 9:30 11:00 12:30 14:00 15:30 17:00
shows the trending data for the supply fan speed and
Time
outside air temperature.
Figure 6. Determined fan speed ratio

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100 75.0
90
72.5 PLF
Supply fan speed(%)

80 2F
70 70.0

Temperature(F)
3F
60 67.5 4F
50 5F
40 65.0
6F
30 62.5 7F
20 8F
10 60.0
10F
0 57.5 11F
50 60 70 80 90 100
Outside air temperature(F) 55.0
6:00 8:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00
Figure 8. Supply fan speed and outside air temperature Time
trend
Figure 10. Discharge temperature graph of optimal
supply fan control
Results and discussions
After applying the optimal supply fan control The reheat energy savings can be considered as the
sequence in real buildings, the energy consumption and reheat energy consumption required to heat the reduced
room conditions were measured and analyzed. airflow from the discharge air temperature to the room
temperature. The reheating coil energy consumption
Energy consumption in the actual system can be estimated based on the equation (2).
! Interior zone
Room, supply and discharge air temperature were •

measured with a data-logger to compare the thermal ∆E rh = m⋅ C p ⋅ (α fixed − α dynamic ) ⋅ (TDA − Tr ) (2)
energy consumption. The results show room and
supply air temperature are similar but discharge air From previous measured room condition data, the
temperature is different for each area served. Figures 9 reheat energy consumption is 6,947,892 Btu/hr when
and 10 show the discharge air temperature graphs of there is fixed VFD speed, as shown in Table 1 and
existing and optimal supply fan control. Two figures Figure 11. On the other hand, the energy consumption
show each floor has a similar trend but different is 3,896,493 Btu/hr when there is dynamic VFD speed.
discharge temperature to maintain room air The thermal energy consumption of dynamic VFD
temperature by adjusting reheating coil. Each floor speed is less than that of the fixed VFD speed by 44 %.
discharge temperature shows that there is unnecessary Therefore, when the supply fan speed control is
reheat energy from supply air condition to maintain optimized, thermal energy can be reduced.
room air temperature, even the 8th floor, and also
wastes a fan power energy. After implementing a Table 1. Comparison data of thermal energy
dynamic VFD speed, the discharge air temperature has consumption
Fixed VFD Dynamic VFD Energy
a lower than fixed VFD speed as shown in Figure 9 Floor
speed (Btu/hr) speed (Btu/hr) saving (%)
and 10. The discharge air temperature is reduced and
reheating energy should also be saved by dynamic PLF 784,891 502,611 36.0
VFD speed. 2nd 680,100 350,993 48.4
75.0 rd
3 527,329 163,780 68.9
72.5 PLF
4th 799,420 551,056 31.1
2F
70.0 5th 693,341 344,032 50.4
Temperature(F)

3F
67.5 4F th
5F
6 720,195 467,998 35.0
65.0 6F th
7 624,738 429,354 31.3
62.5 7F
th
8F 8 458,972 81,093 82.3
60.0
10F
10th 822,660 599,766 27.1
57.5 11F

55.0
11th 836,246 405,810 51.5
6:00 8:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 Total 6,947,892 3,896,493 43.9
Time
Figure 9. Discharge temperature graph of existing
supply fan control

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! Exterior zone
In the exterior zone, before installing VFD, the
supply fan power was 5796.0 kWh per week. After
installing VFD on the supply fan, the supply fan speed
set point was 90%(21.0 kW) of the design speed. The
supply fan power was 3528.0 kWh per week. After
implementing optimal speed, the supply fan power was
1426.1 kWh per week. Figure 13 shows the trend data
for supply fan speed and fan power after
implementation of the new control sequence for the
exterior zone. The fan power savings is 39% after
installing VFD and 75% after dynamic VFD speed. In
addition, the discharge air temperature and airflow are
reduced and then reheating energy should also be saved
Figure 11. Comparison graph of the thermal energy by dynamic VFD speed.
consumption
90 100

Temperature(F) and supply fan speed(%)

The interior zone, before installing VFD, was a 80 Outside air temperature (F) 90

constant volume (CV) system. The supply fan power 70 80

Supply fan power(kW)

70
consumption was 2534.0 kWh per week. After 60
Supply fan speed (Dynamic speed ) 60
installing VFD on the supply fan, the supply fan speed 50
was set at a constant speed under normal operating Fan power (Without VFD ) 50
40 : 34.5 kW 40
conditions. The supply fan speed set point was 90% 30 Fan power (With VFD)
30
(25.7 kW) of the design speed. The supply fan power 20
: 21.0 kW
Fan power 20
consumption was 1799.0 kWh per week. The operator (Dynamic speed )
10 10
can manually adjust the supply fan speed set point
0 0
based on the requirement. 8-6-06 0:00 8-6-06 12:00 8-7-06 0:00 8-7-06 12:00 8-8-06 0:00
Weekend Weekend Weekend Weekday Weekday
After implementing the dynamic speed reset, the Nighttime Daytime Nighttime Daytime Nighttime

fan speed is reset based on the maximum zone load. Figure 13. Supply fan speed and power trend graph for
Figure 12 shows the trended data for the supply fan exterior zone
speed for the interior zone. The supply fan power was
1013.6 kWh per week. The supply fan speed was Evaluation of thermal performance
reduced significantly. The decrease of fan speed results To verify the interior zone condition, select the
in major fan power and zone reheating coil energy furthest zone (11th floor) from AHU and highest load
savings. The fan power savings is 29% after installing zone (8th floor). Exterior zone chooses the furthest zone
VFD and 60% after dynamic VFD speed. The system (11th floor). The range of the room air temperatures is
can be operated continuously without frequent speed 72.4°F ~ 73.8°F during occupied hour, as shown in
adjustment by the building operator. Figure 14. After implementing dynamic VFD speed,
the room air temperature is able to maintain the set
90.0 90.0 point and did not result in comfort issues. Therefore, it
80.0
Supply fan speed
(Dynamic speed )
80.0 is assumed that there is proper and stable room air
70.0 70.0
temperature control.
Measurement of CO2 in occupied spaces has
Supply fan power(kW)
Supply fan speed(%)

60.0 60.0
Fan power
been widely used to evaluate the amount of outdoor air
50.0 50.0
(Without VFD)
: 36.2 kW
supplied to indoor spaces. The average CO2 level on
40.0
Fan power (With VFD)
40.0 each floor was in the range of 400 ~ 500 ppm when the
30.0
: 25.7 kW
30.0 average outdoor air concentration was 320 ppm.
Fan power
20.0
(Dynamic speed )
20.0
According to ASHRAE Standard 62, comfort criteria
are likely to be satisfied if the ventilation results in
10.0 10.0
indoor CO2 concentrations less than 700 ppm above the
0.0 0.0
Mon.
8-7-06 8-8-06
Tue. Wed. Thr. Fri. Sat. Sun.
8-9-06 8-10-06 8-11-06 8-12-06 8-13-06 8-14-06
outdoor air concentration, which is representative of
0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 0:00 delivery rates of outside air. Therefore, it is judged that
Time
any IAQ problems due to reduction of the airflow will
Figure 12. Supply fan speed and power trend graph for not happen.
interior zone

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75.0
[2] ASHRAE, 1992, ASHRAE Standard 55-1992,
Thermal environmental conditions for human
74.5
occupancy.
Interior zone (11th FL)
Temperature (F)

74.0 [3] Liu M, Claridge D, and D Turner, 2002.

Continuous Commissioning® Guidebook: Maximize
73.5
Building Energy Efficiency and Comfort.
73.0 [4] Hartman, T., 2003, Improving VAV Zone Control,
Exterior zone ASHRAE Journal, Vol. 45, No. 6, 24-31.
72.5
Interior zone (8th FL) [5] Zheng B, Liu M, and Xiufeng Pang, 2005.
72.0
Continuous Commissioning® of an Office Building.
8:00 9:20 10:40 12:00 13:20 14:40 16:00 ICEBO, Pittsburgh, PA.
Time
[6] Phillips J, 2004, Side-by-side Test Program
Figure 14. Room air temperature trend Verifies Variable-Frequency Energy Savings,
HPAC Engineering, Vol. 76, No. 4, 18-21.
This method is the possible solution for how to [7] Sellers D, 2006, Specifying Variable-Frequency
control supply fan in the current CV systems. This Drives, HPAC Engineering, Vol. 78, No. 10, 54-55.
study shows energy savings without thermal comfort
issues through the field test; however, it still has issues:
(1) difficult to satisfy every zone in the multi-zone
system, (2) verify the building load ratio during four
seasons and (3) consider the supply air temperature
reset when the outside air humidity ratio is low.

Conclusions

This study optimizes the supply fan speed using

VFD with a CV system to reduce energy consumption.
This paper shows a procedure to determine dynamic
supply fan speed using VFD, and to apply the optimal
supply fan control to an actual AHU system. Energy
consumption was compared using measured data.
(1) The fan speed can be modulated based on the
maximum zone load based on the measured data.
(2) The thermal energy consumption of dynamic VFD
speed is 43% less than that of the fixed VFD speed.
(3) The fan power savings is 60% in the interior zone
and 75% in the exterior zone after dynamic VFD speed.

NOMENCLATURE
c p - specific heat capacity, Btu/lbm °F
•
m - mass flow rate, lbm/hr
Tr - room dry bulb temperature, °F
TSA - supply dry bulb temperature, °F
TDA - Discharge dry bulb temperature, °F
α - Building load ratio, %
α fixed - fixed airflow
α dynamic - dynamic airflow

References

[1] ASHRAE, 2000, ASHRAE systems and equipment

handbook, Building air distribution.