Valve influence on the power requirement of centralized pumps in hydronic heating systems - Theoretical study and evaluation of MathModelica as a hydronic systems simulation tool

Paper in proceeding, 2010

This paper describes a method which has been used to evaluate a modeling and simulation software. The method focuses on hydronic system applications and primarily consists of a theoretical study. The study is applied to an assessment of what influence valves have on the power requirement of a centralized pump. In the execution of this study a reference system was simulated in steps using different pump types. The changes in drive power requirement were observed when first balancing and then control valves were introduced to the system. One of the aims of the evaluation method is to determine how well modeled hydronic components corresponded to reality; both regarding dynamic behavior and numerical accuracy. For the conclusion, the evaluation method showed that the software has potential to serve as a hydronic systems simulation software. However, large deviations between simulated and measured data were observed in areas with close to zero flow.