Description

This paper documents the development and validation of a dynamic primary cooling and thermal storage system simulation testbed. The system simulationtestbed, sIBAL, is based on the Intelligent Building Agents Laboratory (IBAL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), whichis a research infrastructure and testbed for the development, evaluation, and demonstration of intelligent control algorithms. The sIBAL testbed developedin this project will serve as a virtual twin of the real facility for future control algorithm development.

The details of the methodologies used to develop and validate the simulation testbed, which replicates the dynamic behaviors of the primary cooling and icestorage system in the IBAL facility, are presented. The simulation testbed was developed in TRNSYS using built-in component models and MATLABfunctions to replicate the two water-cooled chillers, a thermal storage tank, pumps, valves and other components for four different operation modes.Experiments on IBAL components were designed and executed to generate experimental data for model development and verification of the simulationplatform.

The validation of the simulation results was carried out in two phases: 1) independent component simulations for the chillers and thermal storage tank, and2) a combined testbed simulation of the entire hydronic system. Comparison of simulation results to the experimental data obtained from the IBAL facilityshowed errors within 1 °C for the temperatures outputs of both the chiller and the thermal storage model. The error is within an acceptable range for furtherintelligent control algorithms development. The findings from the study are summarized and presented along with areas where additional research is needed.In addition, data filtering procedures and model refinement measures utilized to improve the accuracy and accelerate the computation time of the simulationare presented.

Citation: 2020 Virtual Conference Papers

Product Details

Published:

2020

Number of Pages:

9

Units of Measure:

Dual

File Size:

1 file , 1.5 MB

Product Code(s):

D-VC-20-C056