A group of 5 mechanical engineering students were award 2nd place in the HVAC System Selection Category and 3rd place in the HVAC Design Calculations Category of the ASHRAE 2020 Student Design Competition.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is a well-known international society in the HVAC industry and it hosts the Student Design Competition every year to encourage undergraduate students to become involved in the profession, promotes teamwork and apply the knowledge of practical design in buildings. The competition has three categories: HVAC Design Calculations, HVAC System Selection and Integrated Sustainable Building Design to challenge the students with different engineering and architectural backgrounds.
The 2020 competition adopts a storage and archive centre located in Mumbai, India as the model building for the competitors. Student teams are required to conduct HVAC design calculations, system selection or even architectural building design, to come up with the most optimum solution for the development. Compliance for ASHARE standards for indoor comfort, ventilation, energy efficiency and building sustainability are required. Throughout the design process, students applied their skills in HVAC design, use of energy simulation packages[1], techniques in building information modelling, and analysis in life-cycle costing to evaluate different options for comparison and final system selection.
Revit(R) model of the Storage and Archive Centre
Sun Path and Solar Irradiance Evaluation in Energy Analysis
Options for HVAC System Selection
The submissions in the form of design reports and videos have to be screened at the local and regional levels before they are put forwarded at international level for the final assessment. Winning teams will be invited to attend the ASHRAE Winter Conference at Chicago early 2021 for the awards.
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[1] TraceTM 700 – acknowledgment to Trane Hong Kong