Center for the Built Environment

Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system functional performance test is a critical commissioning step in ensuring the design, installation, and operation of the building's mechanical system is verified against its intent. HVAC systems in commercial buildings are complex and traditional methods, which are manual and time-consuming, are sometimes incomplete. This is particularly concerning for HVAC controls, where an analyst would first identify all relevant sensor measurements from the building management system, cross-reference them with design drawings, and then compile a sequence of operations to test before implementation and analysis. This process becomes harder to manage as the system scales. In this study, we demonstrate it is possible to enhance HVAC equipment and control sequence commissioning by using a metadata schema called Brick in the performance test. The Brick schema allows for querying required measurement points from the BMS in a standardized, machine-readable format. By further connecting the Brick model to the building's BACnet network, most performance tests can be streamlined to increase the commissioning efficiency. In this study, we developed a generalized workflow based on Brick metadata schema that commissioning agents can directly apply with minimal manual adjustment. We demonstrated the framework by testing the air handling unit functions of a climate chamber at UC Berkeley. The performance tests include adjusting the supply fan speed and damper position and analyzing their impact on the airflow rate at terminal units. By using the Brick schema, the HVAC performance tests can be highly automated and generalized to a variety of buildings, yielding time and cost savings during commissioning while improving robustness.