Step 1: Checklist & Implementing floor plans

The first step of any study, both detail and conceptual, is understanding the scope of the project, what is needed and what is provided to successfully finish the studies.

The checklist shown here is a list of all the information needed to fully complete a detailed study. This doesn’t mean that any information missing means you will not be able to complete the project, in some cases Hysopt will be able to calculate the optimal sizing. Just note that this means the project will not be as accurate as possible.

Take for example a circuit with 4 AHUs driven by a single pump. If the pressure drops of the valves and AHUs are known, it might be possible to find an over/under-sizing - of this pump, which in turn influenced the rest of the circuit. If the information is unknown, Hysopt will select a sizing.

The Checklist:

Floor plans
- Try to find the most recent floor plans available.
- Are there valves shown?
- Is the piping shown?
  - If not, do you have any information on this (perhaps an easy trajectory to follow throughout the building?)
  - Is the diameter shown?
- If end units are shown, do they give information on the flows and the temperature regime?
P&ID
- Is there a P&ID of the plant room available?
  - Check if this is the most recent version
  - Sometimes this is pasted on the walls of the P&ID
- Is there information on the pumps (names, design conditions) placed in the energy center?
- Are there flows and design temperatures shown on the P&ID?
- Is there information on the boilers, Heat pumps, CHPs, … currently in use? (capacities, pressure drops, …)
- Is there information on the valves?
Technical sheets
- Boilers, Heat-pumps, CHP, …
- Air handling units (capacity and pressure drop)
- Radiators and convectors (capacity and pressure drop)
- Valve schedule (commissioning, shows settings, sizes, and types of all the valves)
- Pump sheets (shows design flows and pump heads)

If all of this information is available, you are due to make a very useful digital twin. If a lot is missing (certainly a possibility, as in our experience it happens often that settings for balancing valves are changed throughout the years or information which was only printed out is simply lost) it might make sense to plan a site visit and survey, where the missing information is located on the building site itself).

Creating the map and model

The more you start using Hysopt, the more projects you will have made, and the more convoluted the maps will become, hence a good map structure is a godsend. This is best done while creating your first model so that this work is out of the way. The structure suggested here is the one used by Hysopt.

(ProjectNumber)_ProjectName

Conceptual study
- Heating
  - Archive
  - Load matching
  - Final models
- Cooling
  - Archive
  - Load matching
  - Final models
Detail study
- Archive
- The final model (Component selection)

The section Archive is used to stash older versions of the model, which you have improved upon.

The nomenclature of the model is best done with the current date. This way, whenever you start working on a further extension of the model, this can be saved under a new name, so you keep a save state from the work a day before.

Implementing floor plans

Finally, for the most detailed models, you will need to implement the floor plans of the location you are currently looking into. This has the very distinct advantage to be able to draw radiators, AHUs, valves, etc. on their exact location, connected with pipes with the correct pipe length, which in turn leads to accurate pump calculations.

Take the example shown below, where for each room a radiator was found. The information on the radiator was limited so thanks to a site visit where the radiators were measured and the piping throughout the building were checked, the configuration as shown below could be drawn.

The information on how to implement floor plans can be found in section 1: Canvas management & Floor plan implementation