Shao, Xiaojie (2003-05). First Law Energy Balance as a Data Screening Tool. Master's Thesis. Thesis uri icon

abstract

  • This thesis defines the Energy Balance Load ( BL E ) as the difference between the
    heating requirements plus the electric gains in the building and the cooling coil loads. It
    then applies a first law energy balance in conjunction with the concepts of analytical
    redundancy (AR) and trend checking to demonstrate that measured values of BL E can be
    compared with the simulated characteristic ambient temperature-based BL E to serve as a
    useful tool to identify bad data. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis are introduced to
    analyze the impact of each building or system parameter to the simulated values of BL E .
    A Visual Basic for Application (VBA) program has been developed through this research
    work, which applies the methodology illustrated in this thesis to automatically prescreen
    the measured building energy consumption data with the inputs of several key
    parameters. Through case studies of six on-campus buildings, the methodology and the
    program successfully identified monitored consumption data that appears to be
    erroneous, which may result from incorrect scale factors of the sensors and the
    operational changes to the building that may enormously affect the key parameters as the
    simulation inputs. Finally, suggestions are given for the on-line diagnostics of sensor
    signals.

publication date

  • May 2003