Why is DX coil's rated airflow per rated cooling/heating capacity limited?
For DX cooling/heating coils, the rated air volume flow rate per watt of rated total cooling/heating capacity is limited from 0.00004027m3/s/W to 0.00006041 m3/s/W (300 to 450 cfm/ton) (I/O Reference, Engineering Reference).
Most VRF indoor units can switch airflow like H/L or H/M/L, but normally, only one power consumption is on catalogues or technical data sheets, so I regard the power consumption the maximum fan power with the highest airflow rate i.e., I input the highest airflow rate to Cooling Supply Air Flow Rate
and Heating Supply Air Flow Rate
in ZoneHVAC:TerminalUnit:VariableRefrigerantFlow
. The drain pump power may be included in the power consumption, but I ignore it unless I can identify it. And I input the lowest airflow rate to No Cooling Supply Air Flow Rate
and No Heating Supply Air Flow Rate
in ZoneHVAC:TerminalUnit:VariableRefrigerantFlow
.
The problem is that the highest airflow rate in product catalogues often exceeds the upper limit of 0.00006041 m3/s/W. The airflow constraints are not in line with the actual products. Below is an extract from DAIKIN's catalogue as an exapmle.
I have a few questions:
- Why does EnergyPlus have lower and upper limits for DX coil's rated airflow rate per cooling/heaitng capacity?
- Will the limits be relaxed or eliminated in the future?
- For now, should we use the airflow that meets the limits rather than the maximum airflow from the multiple airflow listed in product catalogues?
Comments
Some discussion as to 'why' here: https://github.com/NREL/EnergyPlus/is...
@Eric Ringold Thank you for sharing the thread. @rraustad says "the limits are there to protect the user from operating a DX system out of range on flow rate and is based on review of manufacturers data." If that's the case, the data is old and should be updated. I know that too low airflow rate per capacity may cause coil freezing, so it is reasonable to have a lower limit for the rated airflow per capacity, but we don't need to have the upper limit of 0.00006041m3/s/W (450cfm/ton).
and.... I don't think E+ crashes when you exceed the ranges. Instead, it gives MANY warnings. If you have reviewed the situation and are confident it's acceptable, then I think you can ignore the warnings