A Study On Building Automation Systems Engineering Essay

Intelligent building is different from traditional building that the intelligent building is an integrated and automated tool to help the building occupant to be productive, effective and efficient as well as increases the profitability of organization and improves the quality of life at the same time for all people. It isn’t looked like the traditional building that has its own controls and own cablings to each functional systems for self-monitoring independently not to be got a better life at home or on the office so the intelligent building becomes one of the major trends on development to the system of integration.

Building Automation System (BAS)

Building automation systems is an integral part of the intelligent building. Its mission is to achieve an optimal level on the performances of the building energy use, environmental, traffic and safety monitoring, control to provide a safe, reliable, energy saving, comfortable, pleasant working and live environment. Hence, all of the functional systems should be integrated with the use of a common network infrastructure to allow these integrated systems to link with each other.

There are different functional systems to be used BAS to control as follows.

HVAC (Heating, ventilation and air conditioning) Control System

To bring building occupants a comfort environment, it must ensure that provide a fresh air at the right humidity level. The control system senses temperature and humidity level, make calculations on air flow into and out of a zone and then control the air handling units to a comfort level.

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Lighting Control System

For the lighting control system, when the sensor does not detect any change of heat in that zone, it means that no occupancy is on that area, it signals the local lighting system to turn off after a preset time. Otherwise, the lighting system is turned on when occupancy is detected. On the other hand, the lighting system can be controlled to turn the lights on and off on a preset schedule using on holidays and weekends.

Communication System

For that system, it allows the control center operator to announce urgent messages to the building occupants as well as talk to building technician at a local control panel to solve the problems. It is also available on monitoring lifts and people movers.

Security and Access System

Building owners have the responsibility to ensure safety and security of their building’s occupants for preventing some crimes. The security and access system is linked to the video camera to defense these thieves.

Fire Safety System

The fire safety system is concerned by the building owners on the outbreak and escape routes. If a fire has broken out in specific zone, the system is sensed the signal to manage the ventilation flow around the outbreak to minimize smoke and deter fire spread. Also the system is helped to provide information on where the fire is located and where the lifts are located. After that it provides a better plan exit routes based on the occupancy rates for different floors and zones.

Maintenance Management

The system provides information to the host computer on the status of different functional systems. When there is any failure on the systems, the maintenance technician is allowed to determine easily where the problem is located.

Principle of Building Automation System

To integrate all functional systems to link with each other, it is used to the intelligent building based on Distributed Control Systems (DCS). It is a centralized management decentralized control which is charged with distribution of equipment in the field of the micro-computer control (DDC) to complete device for the task of real-time detection and control, centralized control of computer to overcome the risks of centralized control and conventional instrument limitations. Installed in the central control room of the centralized management computer has a CRT display, print output, software management and strong digital communications capabilities, able to complete by centralizing operations, display, alarm, print, optimal control and the other, to avoid the spread of conventional instrumentation control between the problems of communication on the people and the computers as well as avoid not able to be shortcomings on unified management to ensure the equipment running in the optimal level.

Direct digital control system (DDC)

Direct digital control system as shown in Figure 2. It can detect directly with sensors, transmitters, actuators connected to the field devices to achieve real-time monitoring to the individual components through the communication network and information exchanged to the distributed control system.

Benefit

For the BAS system, there are some benefits as follows from the integration.

Energy management

The energy is saved on the HVAC control, lighting control and the other services that they are switched off when they are not in use and they are controlled and monitored for various aspects like temperature, humidity and related matters when reaching a comfort level. Hence, it saves money on energy management.

Monitoring for maintenance, security and fire safety

On the host computer, it is monitored on the functional systems for maintenance.

Later it is used on security for reducing time on monitoring manually as well as it is covered a much broader area than patrols. Moreover, it detects some outbreaks and then provides escape routes immediately for all building occupancies. Finally, the data available for records can be read directly and analyzed in detailed for building automation system.

Conclusion

To conclude, building automation system can link with different functional systems to take action to do immediately. Also it has many benefits on the intelligent building because of energy saving, cost reducing and good monitoring. It provides a better quality life from the application of the system to be successful. In the future, the technology of the building automation system will become mature, more reliable and less expensive. It will integrate not only in the intelligent building, but it also will apply on the traditional building to change the quality of environment for all people in their life.

References

Books

Derek Clements-Croome, “Intelligent building: Design, Management and Operation”, London, Thomas Telford 2004

Carter Myers, “Intelligent building: A Guide for Facility Managers”, New York, Upward 1996

Websites

http://www.a1articles.com/article_1313497_15.html

http://advancedbuildingautomation.com/

http://www.tdstech.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94:building-automation-system&catid=13:news&Itemid=1

http://www.autooo.net/utf8-classid44-id15131.html

http://safe.zol.com.cn/171/1716788.html

http://www.lowesforpros.com/building-automation-systems-and-sustainability

http://debusiness.directenergy.com/EN/Business-Services/Pages/Automation.aspx