Thermal Distribution Principle and Nonlinear Optimal Control for HVAC Water System

This book introduces the intelligent control technology of heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) water system in detail, studying its thermal distribution characteristics and optimal control methods combining the nonlinearity, strong coupling and delay characteristics to improve the overall operation and maintenance level as well as the energy efficiency of HVAC water system. Intelligent control technology of HVAC water systems involves various fields such as electrical, mechanical, environmental and civil engineering. The book establishes a basic research framework for this topic using a sub-total approach, emphasizing the importance of thermodynamic properties and the significant influence of nonlinear properties in the optimal control of the system. This book is intended for undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in automated control of HVAC water systems, researchers investigating methods for system energy conservation and optimization and design engineers working on intelligent operation and maintenance of HVAC water system.

System Overview.- State of the Art.- Component Models and Control Loops in HVAC Water System.- The Most Unfavorable Loop and the Thermodynamic Stability.- Differential Pressure based Optimal Control Strategy.- Hysteresis and Nonlinear Characteristics of the System.- Global Optimization Problem and Methods.- Concluding remarks.

Dr. Tianyi Zhao received his B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Heating, Gas, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning Engineering subject from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2003, 2005 and 2009, respectively. Since Dec. 2014, Dr. Zhao has been in School of Infrastructure Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, as an associate professor.

Dr. Jiaming Wang received his B.E. degree in Thermal Energy and Power Engineering from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, in 2014, and the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Heating, Gas, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning Engineering from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, in 2018 and 2022, respectively. Since Dec. 2022, Dr. Wang has been in School of Infrastructure Engineering at Dalian University of Technology, as a postdoctoral. Dr. Wang is engaged in the research of decoupling control and distributed collaborative optimization of HVAC systems, taking the complex HVAC systems as research object, mainly studying the system parameters time-delay response characteristics and the component spatial coupling characteristics. The proposed event-driven optimization strategy (SEDO) and the global energy efficiency tradeoff method have high universality and can be directly applied to the existing HVAC systems.

Mrs. Yiting Wang received her B.E. degree in Built Environment and Equipment Engineering from Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 2016, and the M.E. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, in 2019. She has been involved in several projects using swarm intelligent building automation technology and has been responsible for the development of several control strategies for HVAC system.  Since 2024, Dr. Wang has been in School of Infrastructure Engineering at Dalian University of Technology, as a doctoral student.