PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL

Primary function of modulating

valve is to be able to control the
amount of chill water through the
cooling coil in accordance to the
cooling load without influence of
external factor such as pressure
across the valve.

Cooling load in btu/hr = 500 x gpm (in US) x delta T in Fahrenheit

PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL

Valve authority is a reflection of how well the valve behaves and modulates to an external set point such as
temperature, etc without the influence of the pressure.

Where delta pV is the pressure the fully opened valve and dPc
is the pressure in the remaining circuit.

• The valve authority value of less than 0.25 will result in

unstable flow and not being able to modulate the valve.

• Value of between 0.25 to 0.5 will result in fair control.

• Value above 0.5 will provide good control of valve

That means pressure drop across valve has to be substantial

relative to pressure drop in entire circuit to have good
authority.
PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL

Valve authority is a reflection of how well the valve behaves and modulates to an external set point such as
temperature, etc without the influence of the pressure.

When oversizing valve, we will have low delta pV as compared

to delta pC. Thus valve authority will be very low. A low valve
authority mean that it is difficult to control the valve.

However when valve is undersize, valve authority may be good

but there is substantial pressure and thus energy loss. A
balance need to be achieved between good valve authority
and minimum energy loss.
 In the past, engineers have tried to
PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL balance the hydronic circuit using
manual balancing valve such that
pressure across the modulating
8psi 8psi valve is more or less the same at the
circuit closest to pump to the one
8psi

5psi 5psi
13psi 5psi
that is furtherest. However, this is

21psi 5psi
only true at the moment of
4psi
4psi balancing.
4psi
As the heat load demand of the coil
varies, the flow rate will vary across
the coil. This means the pressure
available at each modulating valve
in the circuit will change from what
is measured during the balancing
exercise.

4psi 4psi 4psi This may result in overflow across

some coils and starving across other
coils.
Cooling load in btu/hr = 500 x gpm (in US) x delta T in Fahrenheit
PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL
Manual Balancing Valve
BALANCED CONDITION
8psi 8psi • Condition of pressure across
8psi modulating valve, manual

5psi 5psi
13psi 5psi
21psi 5psi
balancing valve and across coil at
4psi P full load coil.
4psi 4psi • Pump is modulating to control
pressure across the last leg of
18psi.
• In this exercise, we assume the

34psi
coils are all the same size.

26psi
• Thus the pressure across the coils
are all 8psi.
• The pressure across each
modulating valve is 5psi.
• We use the manual balancing
4psi 4psi 4psi valve to balance the circuit.

Cooling load in btu/hr = 500 x gpm (in US) x delta T in Fahrenheit

PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL (REDUCED LOAD AT LAST COIL.)
Manual Balancing Valve
• Lets say the last coil is at
8psi 4psi reduced load with reduced flow.
• The pressure drop across last coil

2psi 12psi
8psi

13psi 1psi
21psi 1psi
and manual balancing valve
4psi P would be reduced significantly.
4psi 2psi • Since pump is modulating to
18psi for the last leg, the
pressure across the last control
valve would be 12psi as
compared to 5psi previously.
This would cause overflow on
the last coil.
• The pressure drop across the
middle and first coil modulating
valve would be only 1psi as
4psi 4psi 2psi compared to 5psi in balanced
condition. This would cause the
Cooling load in btu/hr = 500 x gpm (in US) x delta T in Fahrenheit coils to be starved of flow.
PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL (FIRST COIL AT REDUCED LOAD.)
Manual Balancing Valve
• Lets say the first coil is at
8psi 8psi reduced load with reduced flow.
• The pressure drop across first coil

10psi 20psi
4psi

5psi 5psi
13psi 5psi
and manual balancing valve
4psi P would be reduced significantly.
4psi 4psi • The pressure drop across the
middle and last coil modulating
valve would remain the same as
5psi.
• The pressure drop across the first
coil modulating valve would be
increased to 20psi as compared
to 5psi at balanced condition.
This would cause massive
overflow at first coil.
4psi 4psi 4psi

Cooling load in btu/hr = 500 x gpm (in US) x delta T in Fahrenheit

PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL
Manual Balancing Valve
• Lets say only first coil is
0psi 0psi operating.
• The pressure drop across first leg

0psi 18psi
18psi
8psi

21psi ?psi
would now be at 18psi.
4psi P • This would not provide sufficient

0psi
0psi 0psi pressure drop across the
modulating valve for it to
function, thus causing starvation
of flow.

4psi 0psi 0psi

Cooling load in btu/hr = 500 x gpm (in US) x delta T in Fahrenheit

PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL
Manual Balancing Valve Conclusion
• At balanced load, the flow rate is
accordance to design.
• When last coil is running at low
load, the last coil will experience
overflow condition while the
upstream coils will be starving of
chilled water.
• When first coil is reduced load,
the downstream coils would be
okay but the first coil will
experience overflow.
• When only first coil is running
and all other coils are turned off,
the coil may not have sufficient
pressure across modulating
valve to have any flow.

Cooling load in btu/hr = 500 x gpm (in US) x delta T in Fahrenheit

PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL

➢ The solution is quite simple. It is to replace all modulating valves with pressure independent balancing
control valve.

➢ The pressure P3-P1 will change in accordance to the hydronic performance of the circuit.

➢ However, the spring will modulate such that P2-P1 remains constant.

➢ This means that the excess pressure differential is taken up by the spring in P3-P2.
PRESSURE INDEPENDENT BALANCING VALVE CONTROL

Thus, the position of the valve will

modulate in accordance to the control
signal from BMS (which is dependent
on the cooling load) as long as the
pressure P3-P1 is within the operating
range of the valve.

The value P3-P1 can be obtained from

the valve manufacturer.