Development of a Pump Water Flow Station for HVAC Systems

It is important to find an effective way to accurately and inexpensively measure the water flow rates for building energy monitoring and simulation. A pump water flow station (PWS) was developed that measures the water flow rate using pump head, pump speed, and pump performance curve. The pump water flow station includes a differential pressure transducer and pump speed transducer. The pump speed transducer can be replaced by the calibrated control system’s command to the variable frequency drive (VFD). This method has been experimentally proved in a real building’s chilled water system in this paper. The case study shows that the PWS can measure water flow rate and monitor the energy consumption continuously and accurately. Therefore the PWS can be used as a cost-effective control monitoring method in heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.