Fan pressure-based testing,adjusting, and balancing of a ventilation system

Ventilation systems are responsible for the thermal comfort and air quality of indoor spaces. The adjustment of ventilation systems is a time-consuming task that may need multiple iterations. Incorrect adjustments of a ventilation system can reduce the quality of working and living conditions and degrade the energy efficiency of the ventilation. In this paper, a testing, adjusting, and balancing method for a ventilation system is presented that uses only the knowledge of the fan total flow rate and pressure. The method does not need additional instrumentation for the ventilation adjustment as the fan operating point can be estimated with the variable-speed drive. The method is noniterative, thereby saving time, and the ventilation system is adjusted to its minimum energy consumption setting without compromise in system operation. The proposed method is assessed with a laboratory test setup to verify the correct operation of the method in practice.