‘2101/2020 Ductwork sizing, calculation and design for efclency - The Englneering Mindset
Ductwork sizing, calculation and design for
efficiency
ide to designing ductwork systems
ul Evans - jl 3, 2018
how to design a auc system ws
How to design a duct system. In this article we'll be learning how to size and design a
ductwork system for efficiency. We'll include a full worked example as well as using
CFD simulations to optimise the performance and efficiency using SimScale. Scroll to
the bottom to watch the FREE YouTube video tutorial!
@W Create a free SimScale account to test the cloud-based CFD simulation
platform here: https://www.simscale.com/ With 100,000+ users worldwide, SimScale
Js a revolutionary cloud-based CAE platform that gives instant access to CFD and FEA
simulation technology for quick and easy virtual testing, comparison and optimization
of designs in several industries, including HVAC, AEC, and electronics.
+ Discover more than 50 free on-demand webinars on different topics, from
ventilation or data center design and wind load analysis to aerospace, Fi, and
sports aerodynamics here: https://www.simscale.com/webinars-wor.
+ Read more about the benefits of using cloud-based engineering simulation and the
SimScale Community here: httos://www.simscale.com/product/pricing
‘+ Find thousands of ready-to-use simulation templates created by SimScale’s users
which you can copy and modify for your own analysis:
https://www.simscale.com/projects/
Methods of ductwork design
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* Velocity reduction method: (Residential or small commercial installations)
‘+ Equal friction method: (Medium to large sized commercial installations)
‘+ Static regain: Very large installations (concert halls, airports and industrial)
We're going to focus on the equal friction method in this example as it’s the most,
common method used for commercial HVAC systems and its fairly simple to follow.
Design example
TeCrenr)
The Bung Layout
So we'll jump straight into designing a system. We'll use a small engineering office as
an example and we want to make a layout drawing of the building which we'll use for
the design and calculations. This is a really simple building it has just 4 offices a
corridor and a mechanical room which is where the fan, filters and air heater or cooler
will be located,
Rone hacia)
Ce ee ane ray
‘ulng heating and cooing loads
‘The first thing we need to do is calculate the heating and cooling loads for each room,
1 won't cover how to do that in this article we'll have to cover that in a separate
tutorial as it’s 2 separate subject area.
‘Once you have these, just tally them together to find which is the biggest Load as we
Need to size the system to be able to operate at the peak demand, The cooling load is
usually the highest, as itis in this case.
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mdot = Q/ (cp x At)
eae)
AGB
= Mass Flow Rate (ka/s)
pect 19)
ure Diference Between Design
Supply & Design Return Alr Temperature (K)
{atest ar mass ow rate from cooling load
Where mdot means mass flow rate (ka/s), the Q being the cooling load of the room
(kW), cp is the specific heat capacity of the air (k3/kg.K) and At being the temperature
difference between the designed air temperature and the design return temperature.
Just to note that we will use a cp of 1.026 ki/kg.k as standard and the delta T should
be less than 10*C so welll use 8c,
We know all the values for this so we can calculate the mass flow rate (how many
kilograms per second of air needs to enter the room). If we look at the calculation for
room 1, we see it requires 0.26 kg/s. So we just repeat that calculation for the rest of
the room to find all the mass flow rates.
Ductwork Design and Efficiency
Ci Stara a
‘Aira ate caeuation foreach rom
Now we can convert these into volume flow rates. To do that we need the specific
volume or density of the air. We'll specify 21*c and assume atmospheric pressure of
101.325 kPa. We can look this up in our air properties tables but I lke to just use an
online calculator http://bit.\y/2tyTByp as its quicker. So we just drop those numbers in
and we get the density of air being 1.2 kg/m3
You see that density has the units of kg/m3 but we need specific volume which is
m3/kg so to convert that we just take the inverse which means to calculate 1.2 to the
power of -1. You can just do that in excel very quickly (copy paste this =1.24-1) to
get the answer of 0.83m3/kg
Now that we have that we can calculate the volume flow rate using the formula:
vdot
‘dot multiplied by v.
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a)
ba
PRM rasa Gt)
= Mass Flow rate (kg/s)
SS oN LG)
Colette ai volume Now rate from mass ow rte
where vdot equals the volume flow rate, mdot equals the mass flow rate of the room
and v equals the specific volume which we just calculated,
So if we drop those values in for room 1 we get a volume flow rate of 0.2158m3/s that
Is how much alr needs to enter the room to meet the cooling load, So just repeat that
calculation for all the rooms.
Ck
era} eS
02407 m3/s_ | 01577 Mb/s
cL assests | os hel
026 ka/s WaT
02158 m3/s| 01826 m3/s.
Ene)
Bulking air volume Row rates ~ duct sizing
Now we're going to sketch out our ductwork route onto the floor plan so we can start
to size it.
Prey
Ductwork layout
Before we go any further we need to consider some things which will play a big role in
the overall efficiency of the system.
Design considerations
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what we'll use in our worked example later on. If we compare round duct to
rectangular duct we see that:
a SN Ga
Reel lca Cee eet
Perera oa
Round duct and rectangular duct comparison
A round duct with a cross sectional area of 0,6m2 has a perimeter of 2.75m
A rectangular duct with an equal cross sectional area has a perimeter of 3.87m
‘The rectangular duct therefore requires more metal for its construction, this adds
more weight and costs to the design. The larger perimeter also means more alr will
come into contact wit the material and this adds friction to the system, Friction in a
system means the fan needs to work harder and this results in higher operating costs.
Always use round duct where possible although in many cases rectangular duct needs
to be used as space is limited.
‘The second thing to consider isthe material being used forthe ducts, and the
roughness ofthis material as this causes fiction, For example if we had two duct,
with equal dimensions volume flow rate and velocty, the only difference is the
material. One is made from standard galvanised steel the ather from fibreglass, the
pressure drop over a 10m distance for this example, is around 11 Pa for the
elvanised stel and 16 Pa forthe Fibreglass.
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radius bends rather than right angles as the sudden change in direction wastes a huge
amount of energy.
Ductwork CFD simurations
We can compare the performance of different ductwork designs, quickly and easily
using CFD or computational fluid dynamics. These simulations were produced using a
revolutionary cloud based CFD and FEA engineering platform, by SimScale, who have
kindly sponsored this article,
You can access this software free of charge by clicking here, and they offer a number
of different account types depending on your simulation needs,
SimScale is not just limited to ductwork design, it’s also used for data centers, AEC
applications, electronics design, as well as thermal and structural analysis.
Just 2 quick look on their site and you can find thousands of simulations for everything
from buildings, HVAC systems, heat exchangers, pumps and valves to race cars and
air planes, which can all be copied and used as templates for your own design.
analysis.
‘They also offer free webinars, courses and tutorials to help you set up and run your
own simulations, If like me you have some experience creating CFD simulations then
you'll know that this type of software is usually very expensive and you would also
need @ powerful computer to run it
With SimScale, however, all can be done from a web browser, As the platform is cloud~
based, their servers do all the work and we can access our design simulations from
anywhere, which makes our lives as engineers a lot easier.
So if you're an engineer, designer, architect or just someone interested in trying out,
simulation technology, then I highly recommend you check this software out, get your
free account by following this link.
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‘CFO ductwork design Standard and optimised
Now if we look at the comparison for the two designs we have a standard design on
the left and a more efficient design on the right which has been optimised using
simscale. Both designs use an air velocity of Sm/s, the colours represent the velocity
with blue meaning low velocity and red representing the high velocity regions,
Ductwork Design and Efficiency
We can see from the velocity colour scale and the streartines that in the design on the
left, the inlet air directly strikes the sharp turns that are present in the system which
‘causes an increase in the static pressure. The sharp turns cause a large amount of
recirculation regions within the ducts, preventing the air from moving smoothly.
‘The tee section at the far end of the main duct causes the air to suddenly divide and
change direction. There is a high amount of backflow here which again increases the
static pressure and reduces the amount of air delivery
‘The high velocity in the main duct which is caused by the sharp turns and sudden
bends, reduces the flow into the 3 branches on the left
Ductwork Design and Efficienc
@SIMSCALE
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significantly improves the air flow rate within the system. At the far end of the main
duct the air is divided into two branches through a gentle, curved tee section. This
allows the air to smoothly change direction and thus there is no sudden increase in
static pressure and the air flow rate to the rooms has dramatically increased,
‘The three branches within the main duct now receive equal air flow making @
significant improvement to the design. This is because an additional branch now feeds
the three smaller branches allowing some of the air to smoothly break away from the
‘main flow and feed into these smaller branches,
With these considerations in place we can come back to the duct design.
uct and fing abels
Now we need to label every section of ductwork as well as the fittings with a letter.
Notice we are only designing a very simple system here so I've only included ducts
and basic fittings, I've not included things such as grilles, inlets, flexible connections,
fire dampers etc.
Now we want to make a table with the rows labelled as per the example. Each duct
and fitting needs its own row, if the air stream splits such as with a Tee section, then
we need to include a line for each direction, we'll see that later in the article,
Just add in the letters to separate rows then declare what type of fitting or duct that.
corresponds to.
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‘serves. You can see on the chart I've filled that in.
ees | ona |
oes |e oF branch + 13F
ane t
7 i ae 1 |
a eee ee ‘oF branch +I
ifr 1 t
Ductwork chart main duct flow rates
Then we can start to size the main ducts, To do this make sure you start at the main
duct which is furthest away. Then we just add up the volume flow rates for all the
branches downstream of this. For the main duct G we just sum branches Land I. For
D that’s just the sum of LI and F and for duct A its then the sum of L, I, F and C. so
Just enter those into the table,
From the rough drawing we measure out the length of each duct section and enter this
Into the chart.
Duct sizing — How to size ductwork
To size the ducts you're going to need a duct sizing chart. You can obtain these from
ductwork manufacturers or from industry bodies such as CIBSE and ASHRAE. If you
don’t have one, you can find them in the following links. Link 1 and Link 2
‘These charts hold a lot of information. We can use them to find the pressure drop per
meter, the air velocity, the volume flow rate and also the size of the ductwork. The
layout of the chart does vary a little depending on the manufacturer but in this
example the vertical lines are for pressure drop per meter of duct. The horizontal lines
are for volume flow rate. The downward diagonal lines are for velocity, the upward
diagonal lines are for duct diameter.
We start sizing from the first main duct which is section A. To limit the noise in this,
section welll specify that it can only have a maximum velocity of 5m/s. We know that.
this duct also requires a volume flow rate of 0,79m3/s so we can use the velocity and
volume flow rate to find the missing data.
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Volume aw, gm
uct sizing example
We take the chart and scroll up from the bottom left until we hit the volume flow rate
of 0.79m3/s. Then we locate where the velocity line Is of Sm/s and we draw a line
across until we hit that. Then to find the pressure drop we draw a vertical line down
from this intersection, In this instance we see it comes out at 0.65 pa per meter. So
add this figure into the chart, As we're using the equal pressure drop method we can
use this pressure drop for all the duct lengths so fill those in too. Then we scroll up
again and align our intersection with the upward diagonal lines to see this requires a
duct with a diameter of 0.45m so we add that into the table also.
We know the volume flow rate and pressure drop so we can now calculate the values
for section C and then the remaining ducts.
For the remainder of the ducts we use the same method,
i f
bos ks
a Re 4
ozs 1
on NA
Duct sing equal pressure metiod
(On the chart we start by drawing a line from 0,65 pa/m all the way up and then draw
a line across from our required volume flow rate, in this case for section C we need
0.21m3/s. At this intersection we draw a line to find the velocity and we can see that it
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tthe other diagonal grid to find our duct diameter which in this case is about 0.27m and
‘we'll add that to the table too.
Repeat that last process for all the remaining ducts and branches until the table is
complete.
Now find the total duct losses for each duct and branch, that’s very easy to do simply
multiply the duct length by the pressure drop per meter, in our example we found it to
be 0.65pa/m. Do that for all the ducts and branches on the table.
Sizing ductwork fittings
‘The first fitting we'll look at is the 90* bend between ducts J and L
For this we look up our loss coefficient for the bend from the manufacturer or the
industry body, you can find that by clicking this link.
Duet bend fing pressure fos ceftent
In this example we can see the coefficient comes out at 0.11,
We then need to calculate the dynamic loss caused by the bend changing the direction
of flow. For that we use the formula Co multiplied by rho multiplied by v squared
divided by 2 where co is our coefficient, rho is the density of the air and v is the
velocity.
Bend loss = 5 reat yh
Sa Reece gee tn)
a eG Reet
Air Velocity entering Fitting ( Look up From table branch)
Duct bend pressure fss formule
We already know all these values so if we drop the figures in we get an answer of
0.718 pascals. So just add that to the table. (Watch the video at the bottom of the
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‘The next iting well ook ats the fee which connects the main duct tothe branches,
well use the example ofthe tee with the ID letter H between G and Jn the system,
Now for this we need to consider thatthe aris moving in two directions, straight
through and algo turing off int the branch so we need to perform a calculation for
both directions
If we look at the air travelling straight though first, we find the velocity ratio first using
the formula velocity out divided by velocity in. In this example the air out is 3.3m/s
and the air in is 4m/s which gives us 0.83,
‘Then we perform another calculation to find the area ratio, this uses the formula
diameter out squared divided by diameter In squared. In this example the diameter
out is 0.24m and the diameter in is 0.33m so if we square them and then divide we
get 0.53,
Now we look up the fitting we're using from the manufacturer or the industry body,
again link here for that.
ras
uct te sizing
In the guides we find two tables the one you use depends on the direction of flow,
we're using the straight direction so we locate that one and then look up each ratio to
find our loss coefficient. Here you can see both of the values we calculated fall
between vales listed in the table so we need to perform a bilinear interpolation. To
save time we'll ust use an online calculator to find that, link here (watch the video to
learn how to perform a bilinear interpolation).
We fill out our values and we find the answer of 0.143
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Ductwork sizing, calculation and design fr effcency ~The Engineering Mindset
rr ee
Inet & Oe
Cees
ees
eerie
tered
eee
Tee pressure loss caleulaon
Now we calculate the dynamic loss for the straight path through the tee, using the
formula co multiplied by rho multiplied by v squared divided by 2. If we drop our
values in we get the answer of 0.934 pascals so add that to the table.
‘Then we can calculate the dynamic loss for the air which turns into the bend. For this
we use the same formulas as before, Velocity out didived by velocity in to find our
velocity ratio. Then we find the area ratio using the formula diameter out squared
divided by diameter in squared. We take our values from our table and use 3.5m/s
divided by 4m/s to get 0.875 for the velocity ratio and we use 0.26m squared divided
by 0.33m squared to get 0.62 for the area ratio.
Tee Fitting Losses
Tee ting oss bend
‘Then we use the bend table for the tee section, again its between the values listed in
the table so we have to find the numbers using bilinear interpolation. We drop the
values in to get the answer of 0.3645 pascales. So just add that to the table too.
Now repeat that calculation for the other tees and fittings until the table to complete.
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Finding the index run — duct sizing
Next we need to find the index run which is the run with the largest pressure drop. It’s
usually the longest run but could also be the run with the most fittings.
We find it easily by adding up all the pressure losses from the start to the exit of each.
branch
For example to get from A to C we lose 5.04pa
A (1.3pa) + 8 (1.79pa) + C (1.95pa)
For A to F we lose 8.8pa
A (1.3pa) + B (1.7pa) + D (1.3pa) + E (2.55pa) + F (1.95)
For A to I we lose 10.56
A (1.3pa) + B (1.7pa) + D (1.3pa) + E (1.34pa) + G (2.6pa) + H (0.36pa) +1
(1.95pa)
For A to L we lose 12.5pa
A(L.3pa) + B (1.7pa) + D (1.3pa) + E (1.34pa) + G (2.6pa) + H (0.93pa) +3
(0.65pa) + K (0.72pa) +L (1.95pa)
‘Therefore the fan we use must overcome the run with the highest loss, that being A -
Lwith 12,5pa, this is the index run,
Ductwork dampers - system balancing
To balance the systern we need to add dampers to each of the branches to ensure
equal pressure drop through all to achieve the design flow rates to each room,
We can calculate how much pressure drop each damper needs to provide simply by
subtracting the loss of the run from the index run.
Ato Cis 12.5pa ~ 5.04pa = 7.46pa
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‘And that is our ducting system. We'll do another tutorial covering additional ways to
improve efficiency in ductwork system.
6 a [