12/03/2018

Smart-Air – The smart Solution for AHU Selection and Design

Our sales representative Ajay Mehndiratta provides us in this article with a brief overview of the market for Air Handling Units in India, giving us interesting insights on how Smart-Air, our software for the selection and budgeting of AHUs can be an excellent solution able to meet the needs of manufacturers.

Indian AHU Market

As we know HVAC & R Market in India around 3 billion USD which is 2.7% of Global Market, Growing @ 9.16% CAGR and Air Handling Equipment Market growing @ 9.46% CAGR and expected market size will be 600 million USD in 2019, AHU market growing rapidly because of real estate sector is boosting both residential and commercial construction businesses. Strong infrastructure development, rapid urbanization, growth in commercial properties etc are some of the key factors fuelling AHU market in India.

Air handling unit

Air handling units (AHU, sometimes referred to as ‘air handlers’) form part of the heating, ventilating and air conditioning system (HVAC) that supplies, circulates and extracts air from buildings.
Air handling units can be supplied in a range of sizes, and with a variety of capabilities, but typically they comprise an insulated box that forms the housing for filter racks or chambers, a fan (or blower), and sometimes heating elements, cooling elements, sound attenuators and dampers (that can be operated manually or automatically to regulate or prevent specific air flows).

Several types of Air Handling Units manufature in India like – Compact, Modular, Residential, DX integrated, Low Profile (ceiling), Horizontal, Vertical etc. The Air Handling Units can have several components, depending on the complexity and requirements, such as energy efficiency of each specific building and application.

Air Handling Unit design is more complicated and requires in-depth study of atmospheric condition, psychometric properties, mechnical and thermal properties, dust count etc. The process of designing and laying out air handling unit is a chance for the design engineer and manufacturers representative to be creative and imaginative.

Many air handling unit manufacturers are fond of saying “if you can dream it up, we can build it” however any unit design must still follow good equipment engineering practice to avoid constructing equipment that may have field problems which can be difficult and costly to rectify once the units are in operation. Air Handling Units are no mass production units. Each product is unique and specifically adapted to the customers’ requirements. So it is very difficult and complicated for manufacturers to find out correct mechanical performance and energy rating of AHU and also facing issues in design and estimation of AHU like-

Sizing of air handling units and associated ventilation equipment, in order to suit the particular specification,
Proper Cooling and Heating Coil Considerations for correct effect.
Proper Fan positioning and Location of fans relative to adjacent components such as coils, filters and unit openings.
Location and Sizing of Unit Inlets and Outlets-The size and location of the unit duct connections can have a significant affect on unit pressure drop, coil performance and sound levels.
Correct Mechanical performance includes- Casing strength, Casing air leakage, Filter bypass leakage, Thermal transmittance of the casing, Thermal bridging factor, Acoustical insulation of casing
Correct Energy rating and performance includes-Air flow, Available static pressure, power input, Octave band in-duct sound power level, Airborne sound power level, Heating capacity, Cooling capacity, Heat recovery, Pressure loss on water side
Minimizing Unit Sound Levels-Because custom air handling units are often very large systems, the amount of sound they generate can be very objectionable if it is not considered and adequately addressed during the unit’s initial design.
Optimizing the design of a large complex custom air handling system
The accuracy to which manufacturing processes are performed requires precision for each and every detail of the air handling unit, it’s components and the materials used.
Accuracy of Performance Range Chart
Proper AHU Selection and billing
Detailed components information and arrengement and many other technical concerns…..

Performing the design or rating of AHU can be quite tedious and repetitive. Calculation steps involve complex equations and small errors and rounds might amplify the global tolerance of the calculation. Plus, if all this process has to be repeated quite a few times to find an efficient and cost-effective Air handlers, then the whole process becomes way more time-consuming. So there must have tool for manfacturers that ease designing and estamating works and fortunately, there are many selection, estimation and design software that help engineers, contactors in performing design, ratings and selection efficiently.
Thru this article we introduce smart solution for selection, estimation and design of Air handlers.
UNILAB SMART-AIR, the advanced software that satisfies the requirements of Sales and Production Departments, a smart solution for HVAC companies who manufacture or sell air handling units.

The software reduces drastically the time from acquiring the order to its manufacturing. Its user-friendly graphical interface allows a quick selection of standard units, previously uploaded in the database.

Once the offer has been created, the software provides sev-eral outputs that help the Technical Department design the unit, which will then be sent to the Production Department, and then to the numerical control machines (CNC). The soft-ware helps the technical department perform about the 80% of its work! Only the remaining 20%, which is the revision of the drawings generated by the program, is in charge of the designers.

The software has a modular structure:

SELECTION Module, available in 2 editions, STANDARD and PROFESSIONAL: the software selects the correct size accord-ing to the air flow and face velocity, selects the components (coils, filters, fans, etc.), provides the gross price, dimensions and weight, and produces a commercial offer in a few minutes;
OUT OF RANGE Module: allows the creation of the units’ offers which are out of the standard range and catalogue, inserting the coils and unit’s dimensions which are defined at that moment.
Smart-Air VIEW3: produces a schematic drawing in 3D for the Production Department, provides the documentation (DWG, DXF, STL, STEP formats, etc, cut list of tamponages, profiles and panels) necessary to build the units. The soft-ware provides technical drawings of profiles, omega, panels, tamponages and the basement according to the real condi-tions. The program considers drawings related to the elements of the sections such as sketch.

CERTIFICATIONS: This software is widely used by AHU manufacturers for getting certications (AHRI, EUROVENT) of Air handling units – Mechanical Performance, Ratings and performance for units components or sections.

To know more about our software Smart-Air, visit our page https://www.unilab.eu/heat-transfer-software/unilab-smart-air/

Mr. Ajay Mehndiratta, CEO of MSD Technologies