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Building Automation
The Building Automation
Department is a group within the Facilities Management Department.
The primary objective of this group is to maintain the HVAC (Heating/Ventilation/Air
Condition) control system on campus. Most of the buildings
on the Radford University Campus have HVAC DDC (Direct Digital
Control) of the equipment. The Energy Management System
computer which is located in the University Services Center
monitors all of the buildings. From the EMS computer, you
can "see" what is happening in each building.
If there are any abnormal conditions in the equipment, an alarm
will sound and flash at the Operator Workstation and send a message
to the pager to let the operator know about the alarm. The
Building Automation Tech can change set points, monitor room temperatures,
change schedules, and a variety of other operations for the Energy
Management System.
There is a variety of equipment
across campus. There are Air Handling Units (AHU's) which
send conditioned air to the spaces, Chillers that produce chilled
water to cool the air in the AHU's, Steam valves which control
steam heating the water for Hot Water in the converters, Variable
Air Volume (VAV) Boxes which send a variable amount of air into
the space based on heating/cooling air flow set points, Fan Coil
Units (FCU) which condition air in a space, Phoenix Hoods which
exhaust fumes from chemicals, etc., Exhaust Fans which exhaust
air from a space to maintain a positive pressure within the building,
CO2 sensors for quality air control, and pumps
which circulate the conditioned water (heating or cooling) throughout
the buildings. The Building Automation Group implements
schedules and operational changes as needed across campus, monitor
system operations for alarms and energy efficient operation and
maintains 24/7 coverage of the operations.
The Building Automation
Department also assists with re-modeled or modified areas by restoring/installing
controls as needed.
The Energy Management System
also incorporates a time clock feature which turns units off during
un-occupied periods of time. While the units are in un-occupied
mode, they maintain a lower heating and higher cooling set point
to conserve energy. The time clock feature also makes the
automatic time adjustment for Daylight Savings Time.
Several of the buildings
on campus have pneumatic controllers which are being phased out.
Their principal drawback is that they tend to drift out of calibration,
and the vast majority suffers from "offset", which is
the inability to keep the desired conditions at set-point under
changing load conditions. They are still in use today in
some smaller systems, but most have been replaced with DDC controllers.
Renovations to Floyd Hall
and Peery Hall dormitories are complete with energy saving processes
implemented. Each dorm room has a Fan Coil Unit for control
within the room. There is a room thermostat with set point
adjustment from the front cover. There are infrared motion
sensors within each room that detect occupancy and window contacts
that detect when a window is open. If the room is un-occupied
or the window is open, the FCU will shut down and operate only
at reduced set points until the room is occupied again or the
window is closed. As these renovations are implemented,
it will result in energy savings for the university.
The energy management system
includes two Operator Workstations, Modem to pager access, 35
Network Control Modules for communication and scheduling per building,
733 Application Specific Controllers, 546 DX-9100 plant operation
devices and TC-9102 Fan Coil Unit Controllers, 1 Network Integration
Engine, 1 Printer and two laptops for access in each building.
There are a total of 16413 "points" (hardware and software
system inputs and outputs) all linked to the operational systems.
HVAC
System Operation.
Frequently
Asked Questions
Building Automation
Equipment Pictures
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