Status Instruments claims to have come up with a much more cost-effective alternative to standard enthalpy sensors, based on an existing signal conditioning unit
A principal purpose of heating, ventilating and airconditioning (HVAC) is to provide human comfort.
HVAC systems are designed to provide air at comfortable temperature and humidity levels, free of harmful concentrations of air pollutants.
While heating and airconditioning are relatively straightforward operations, the more complex processes involved in ventilation are the most important in determining the quality of indoor air (IAQ). Ventilation is a combination of processes which results in the supply and removal of air from inside buildings.
These processes include bringing in outdoor air, conditioning and mixing the outdoor air with some portion of indoor air, distributing the mixed air throughout the building and exhausting some portion of the indoor air to the outside.
Many HVAC systems use enthalpy sensors as part of their control mechanism.
These sensors, which monitor both temperature and relative humidity, are relatively expensive and reliability can be a problem.
(Enthalpy is a fundamental thermodynamic term which gives a measure of the heat contained in a system).
The Status Instruments solution is based around a single dual input Medacs module which can take data from a conventional temperature probe and humidity sensor and then convert the inputs to give a measure of enthalpy.
The key to success lies in its Transfer Function Module Library (TFML) which is embedded in each MEDACS module.
This piece of software inserts a transfer function between the inputs and the output to provide a special control function - in this case enthalpy.
Such functions can be downloaded into the module from the Status web site, thereby converting a standard Medacs unit into an enthalpy sensor.
