Design and analysis of air conditioning systems involves selection of suitable inside and outside design conditions, estimation of the required capacity of cooling or heating equipment, selection of suitable cooling/heating system, selecting supply conditions, design of air transmission and distribution systems etc. Generally, the inputs are the building specifications and its usage pattern and any other special requirements.

As shown in the schematic/figure, under a typical summer condition, the building gains sensible and latent heats from the surroundings and also due to internal heat sources (RSH and RLH). The supply air to the building extracts the building heat gains from the conditioned space. These heat gains along with other heat gains due to ventilation, return ducts etc. have to be extracted from the air stream by the cooling coil, so that air at required cold and dry condition can be supplied to the building to complete the cycle. In general, the sensible and latent heat transfer rates (GSH and GLH) on the cooling coil are larger than the building heat gains due to the need for ventilation and return duct losses. To estimate the required cooling capacity of the cooling coil (GTH), it is essential to estimate the building and other heat gains. The building heat gains depend on the type of the building, outside conditions and the required inside conditions. Hence selection of suitable inside and outside design conditions is an important step in the design and analysis of air conditioning systems.

Selection of inside design conditions:

The required inside design conditions depend on the intended use of the building. Air conditioning is required either for providing suitable comfort conditions for the occupants (e.g. comfort air conditioning), or for providing suitable conditions for storage of perishable products (e.g. in cold storages) or conditions for a process to take place or for products to be manufactured (e.g. industrial air conditioning). The required inside conditions for cold storage and industrial air conditioning applications vary widely depending on the specific requirement. However, the required inside conditions for comfort air conditioning systems remain practically same irrespective of the size, type, location, use of the air conditioning building etc., as this is related to the thermal comfort of the human beings.

Selection of outside design conditions:

The ambient temperature and moisture content vary from hour-to-hour and from day-to-day and from place-to-place. For example, in summer the ambient temperature increases from sunrise, reaches a maximum in the afternoon and again decreases towards the evening. On a given day, the relative humidity also varies with temperature and generally reaches a minimum value when the ambient temperature is maximum. For most of the major locations of the world, meteorological data is available in the form of mean daily or monthly maximum and minimum temperatures and corresponding relative humidity or wet bulb temperature. As mentioned before, to estimate the required cooling capacity of an air conditioning plant, it is essential to fix the outside design conditions in addition to the inside conditions. It is obvious that the selected design conditions may prevail only for a short a duration, and most of the time the actual outside conditions will be different from the design values. As a result, for most of the time the plant will be running at off-design conditions.

The design outside conditions also depend on the following factors:

a) Type of the structure, i.e., whether it is of heavy construction, medium or light

b) Insulation characteristics of the building

c) Area of glass or other transparent surfaces

d) Type of usage

e) Nature of occupancy

f) Daily range (difference between maximum and minimum temperatures in a given day)

a. Outdoor design conditions for summer:

Selection of maximum dry and wet bulb temperatures at a particular location leads to excessively large cooling capacities as the maximum temperature generally persists for only a few hours in a year. Hence it is recommended that the outdoor design conditions for summer be chosen based on the values of dry bulb and mean coincident wet bulb temperature that is equaled or exceeded 0.4, 1.0 or 2.0 % of total hours in an year. These values for major locations in the world are available in data books, such as AHRAE handbooks. Whether to choose the 0.4 % value or 1.0 % value or 2.0 % value depends on specific requirements. In the absence of any special requirements, the 1.0% or 2% value may be considered for summer outdoor design conditions.

b. Outdoor design conditions for winter:

Similar to summer, it is not economical to design a winter air conditioning for the worst condition on record as this would give rise to very high heating capacities. Hence it is recommended that the outdoor design conditions for winter be chosen based on the values of dry bulb temperature that is equaled or exceeded 99.6 or 99.0 % of total hours in an year. Similar to summer design conditions, these values for major locations in the world are available in data books, such as AHRAE handbooks. Generally the 99.0% value is adequate, but if the building is made of light-weight materials, poorly insulated or has considerable glass or space temperature is critical, then the 99.6% value is recommended.