Thesis Proposal

Proposed Redesign Ideas
All proposed redesign ideas will be analyzed in comparison to the current building design with respect to cost, building aesthetics (visual and acoustical), the affect on the occupants of the building and the buildings affect on the community around it. The proposals were decided based upon the possibility of a better design as defined above and the perceived educational value of particular topics.

Mechanical Components
The redesign ideas for the mechanical components of the building include the introduction of latent storage in the form of ice storage.
Three main components of ice storage will be looked into thoroughly: proper selection, proper controls methodology, and proper simulation. The ice storage system lends itself to the Hays School because of the low cooling load during off-peak hours. Distributing cooling energy into the nighttime hours should reduce the electric bill by lowering the peak demand usage. In addition to lowering costs, this will also lower the demand required for the city power, providing a service that will benefit the community as a whole. The ice storage system will have two expected draw backs: increased mechanical space and complications with low supply temperatures from the chiller. The selection will most likely be selected by the design day and not a weekly sizing cycle because of the amount of extra space that would be used by a weekly sizing cycle. The design day data will be gathered from the Carrier Hourly Analysis Program (HAP) file used to analyze the building in Technical Assignments 1 & 2. This data will then be used to look at designing the system based off of full storage, load leveling partial storage, or demand limiting. For demand limiting the electrical data of the HAP file will also be extracted to determine how the storage system should discharge to minimize the electrical demand charge. Depending on the method used to select the size of the ice storage system an appropriate method of controls will be chosen. Then, using the yearly data from the HAP file and the controls method chosen, an excel worksheet will be created to run a yearly analysis of the system. A life cycle cost analysis with ice storage will then be compared with a life cycle cost analysis of a system not using ice storage to determine the validity of the proposal.
Breadth Components
The ice storage and chilled beam system will have direct impacts on the electrical components of the building.  An ice storage system is most likely to save money by shifting the chillers electrical usage to nighttime.  This shift will have a considerable affect on the sizing of the electrical equipment in the building.  There will also be a direct impact on the architecture and structures of the building depending on where the ice storage system is located. Any impacts of the ice storage system on the other building components will be looked at with considerations  of applicability and cost.