HVAC Concepts and Fundamentals

In HVAC Concepts and Fundamentals, you'll learn ...

• Thermal Comfort
• Psychrometrics
• Modes of Heat Transfer
• Heat Gain and Heat Loss in Building
• Annual Energy Use Calculations

Overview

Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.

Credit: 6 PDH

Length: 91 pages

HVAC helps keep people comfortable and healthy by maintaining good indoor air quality, humidity and comfortable temperatures. Designing for comfort requires integrated knowledge of human physiology, heat transfer, psychrometrics, and mechanical systems. Most professionals don't learn this stuff in school or on the jobsite, but are expected unrealistically to meet your physiological needs and wants for indoor environmental quality based predominantly on the skills of assembling building components. This is the number one reason why over 50% of occupants are unsatisfied with their thermal environments.

This six-hour course provides the basic concepts of human comfort, temperature - humidity relationships, the principles of psychrometrics and modes of heat transfer you need to design new HVAC systems and/or to retrofit existing systems. It also covers the methodology of heat loss/heat gain calculations and the concepts of noise and acoustic treatment. This course is applicable to mechanical engineers, architects, energy auditors, facility managers, operation and maintenance personal and others in the design and renovation of facilities. T he course is relevant to anyone needing to know more about HVAC fundamentals and processes. Basic knowledge of thermodynamics, fluid flow desired.

This course is a companion to the course HVAC Equipment and Systems, which focuses on HVAC heating and cooling equipments, air and hydronic distribution and the various types of HVAC systems, and is also available on this website.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Explain thermal-comfort considerations, the variables that affect thermal comfort, and related terminology, including mean radiant temperature, wind-chill factor, heat index, operative temperature, effective temperature, and the comfort zone.
• Interpret a psychrometric chart using dry-bulb temperature, wet-bulb temperature, dew-point temperature, relative humidity, humidity ratio, specific enthalpy, and specific volume, and describe mixing, sensible heating and cooling, cooling with dehumidification, and humidification processes.
• Explain the modes of heat transfer through solids and air and the relationships among conductivity, conductance, resistivity, and U-factors.
• Calculate building heat gains and losses using basic cooling-load concepts, envelope characteristics, internal loads, climate data, infiltration, and ventilation.
• Estimate annual energy use using balance-point temperature and heating and cooling degree days.

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 30 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.