Multizone building with VAV air-conditioning system simulation for evaluation and test of control systems

Simulation techniques have been playing a more and more important role in research and development of reliable and energy efficient building automatic control solutions. Furthermore, simulation is appraised as being viable to judge building automation and control solutions. Therefore, to test and evaluate control strategies, Siemens Building Technologies (SBT) developed a building and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) plant model library. In this paper, a Matlab/Simulink building model, which is taken from this library, with a variable air volume (VAV) air conditioning (AC) plant is presented. Different control strategies are applied to this system and tested by connecting the VAV AC plant model with a Simulink model of the control system. All components used for the control represent functionalities being currently available in SBT building automation systems. It is shown that the presented models provide good usability and flexibility for the evaluation and test of control algorithms, especially for innovative building-wide coordinated control strategies.