In an ideal world, engineers would establish heating and cooling loads as early as possible in the design process, ensuring optimum performance of a building and its HVAC systems. But heat loss and heat gain calculations are long and tedious, and tend to be performed only when absolutely necessary. ApacheLoads from the <VE> makes life easier. Calculating heat loss and gain is simple and extremely fast – so you can get on with applying the information, testing and comparing scenarios and determining the most efficient HVAC systems. With the <VE>, the ideal is standard.
What ApacheLoads does:
ApacheLoads calculates design heating and cooling loads, using procedures laid down by the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). These calculations, based on the ASHRAE Heat Balance Method, are performed in seconds on the model created within the IES <VE>.
ApacheLoads is used internationally where the ASHRAE procedures are recognised.
How ApacheLoads works:
ApacheLoads uses the Integrated Data Model (IDM) generated within the <VE>. You can make any number of design changes within the APACHE view, which is a series of facilities inside the <VE> enabling you to edit the thermal properties of your IDM. ApacheLoads uses the IDM to undertake two principal calculations: steady state heat loss calculations to predict the heating requirements for the building. A heating loads calculation, based on the ASHRAE Heat Balance Method, to predict the building cooling requirements. The heat gain calculations can be performed for a selected design day of the week and for a range of design months.
The results from these calculations can be interrogated. Several post-processing calculations can then be performed, such as boiler, chiller sizing and room air supply rates.
ApacheView
With the APACHE view editing facilities it is extremely easy to make changes to key aspects of your model, including:
• construction
• thermal analysis parameters for any number of rooms
• room thermal templates
• HVAC systems, which can be described quickly without detailed schematics
• weather data, drawn from the ASHRAE WDVIEW 3.0 global weather database.
Commercial Benefits
The speed at which ApacheLoads enables you to perform calculations provides you with significant productivity gains. The ability to change your model and rapidly re-calculate improves your technical capability, and helps you provide a better design.
