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Air conditioners design and selection software

AIR is the REF.BOX module dedicated to the design, virtual prototyping, optimization and commercial characterization of conditioners for air conditioning and treatment applications.

This software module allows to design and simulate an air conditioner with a scientific approach, being able to completely characterize the refrigerant circuit thermodynamic and heat-transfer phenomena, the unit control, the unit operating range, to rapidly and accurately calculate the air conditioner seasonal energy indexes such as SEER, SCOP and the performance in part-load operation and to commercially characterize the refrigeration unit by defining its descriptions, images, documentation, any associated accessories and price lists distinguished by market.

It’s a must-have software module for all companies focused on air conditioning and treatment conditioners efficient design, optimization and commercialization.

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User
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Seasonal energy indexes
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Commercial management

Design

The air conditioners module can create a faithful digital copy of the real refrigeration unit, allowing its comprehensive definition:

  • refrigerant: refrigerant selection among those currently available on the market, including HFOs and propane (R290);
  • components: refrigeration unit main components complete characterization, including the air-coils and fans coupling;
  • refrigerant circuit: refrigerant lines characterization;
  • aeraulic circuit: air ducts components characterization (filters, fans, dampers);
  • control: on board unit actual circuits and compressors sequencing and control definition and fans regulation;
  • calibration: user-defined or self-calculated experimental correction coefficients to calibrate the unit nominal performance and energy indexes;
  • user friendly: intuitive graphical interface, rapid special unit generation and Excel files support for massive components and refrigeration units export and import.

Calculation

REF.BOX is equipped with an extremely robust and advanced numerical engine that allows the refrigeration units design, virtual prototyping and optimization in terms of costs and energy performance. The calculation engine includes the refrigeration unit operating constraints returning alarm signals if necessary. The air conditioners module can calculate the refrigeration unit in different operating modes, in detail:

  • maximum capacity: calculation returns the refrigeration unit maximum capacity for given boundary operating conditions;
  • part-load: user can define the total or sensible set-point in terms of load or temperature. The calculation returns the refrigeration unit actual part-load performance including compressors and fans insertion degree;
  • input capacity step: it is possible to calculate the refrigeration unit operating performance for a given user-defined capacity step;
  • normative: it is possible to calculate the unit performance in accordance to the selected normative methodology requirements (Gross, Net, EN 14511, etc.) as far as it concerns the fans thermal and electrical contributions evaluation and the numerical calculation results formatting;
  • seasonal energy indexes: the air conditioners module operates a fast and accurate calculation of SEER. For reversible refrigeration units SCOP energy index is also available;
  • catalogue: catalogue data is a tool for generating performance table based on variable boundary conditions and cooling load.

Commercial characterization

REF.BOX allows a complete commercial characterization of refrigeration units. This characterization is used in the REF.WEB configurator for unit commercial selection. In particular, it’s possible to assign to each unit:

  • descriptions: descriptions and technical specification items definition (multilingual);
  • images and dimensional: images and dimensional association (multilingual);
  • documentation: manuals and brochures association (multilingual);
  • operating limits: envelope and operating limits definition;
  • energy indexes: energy indexes database storage for ErP Directive 2009/125/EC compliant energy fiches automatic print-out;
  • accessories: accessories definition, including rules, and their combination with the refrigeration unit;
  • price lists: units and accessories differentiated association by price list;
  • user level: user level assignment to manage unit visibility within the web configurator.

User friendly

REF.BOX extremely intuitive graphic interface and its intrinsic characteristics allow the user to quickly and easily manage all the details necessary to define the heat pump, and to fast create and manipulate entire product series. In addition, the provided Excel files allow the massive import of hundreds of components, accessories, descriptions, price lists and fully-defined refrigeration units.

The main REF.BOX features are:

  • refrigeration components creation, copying and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • heat pumps creation, copying and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • the instantaneous creation of new units or a series with different architectures starting from an existing one, for example the creation of an only heating heat pump starting from a reversible one;
  • special heat pumps rapid creation and web publishing starting from standard units;
  • components replacement and parameters modification for tens of refrigeration units at the same time, for example the setting of pressure switches of an entire series or the compressor replacement for all units of the same size in a given series;
  • entire series duplication for OEM management, including the possibility of binding them technically and/or commercially to keep data always aligned to the original units;
  • accessories creation, copying and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • accessories coupling to the heat pump by managing their number, coding, price, weight, refrigerant charge, dimensions and unit operating range;
  • multilingual descriptions and documentation definition and editing both from the graphical interface and from Excel;
  • automatic synchronization with the REF.WEB commercial configurator database giving the opportunity, for example, to publish special units and to update price lists in a really fast way.

Seasonal energy indexes

Nowadays to commercialize a heat pump for air-conditioning applications, it is not sufficient to declare its COP at nominal conditions, but the legislation obliges the manufacturer to calculate the seasonal energy performance coefficient SCOP equal to the ratio between the annual heating requirement and the annual electricity consumption. The seasonal energy index calculation is very really time consuming for the designer.

REF.BOX includes algorithms that can quickly and accurately calculate the energy index and to verify whether or not a given heat pump satisfies the minimum efficiency requirements prescribed by the ErP Directive 2009/125/EC according to the indications dictated by the European Regulation (EU) 813/2013. In case of non-compliance, REF.BOX can quickly modify the unit and re-evaluate its performance until the aforementioned minimum requirements are met. The whole process, supported by the robust and advanced calculation engine, is extremely effective in terms of time and costs, allowing the designer to concentrate on components and control unit parameters optimization and not on math.

In addition to the SCOP calculation, REF.BOX can also generate the performance data according to the UNI/TS 11300-4:2016 Italian standard “Energy performance of buildings – Part 4: Renewable energy and other generation systems for space heating and domestic hot water production”. Finally, in the case of reversible heat pumps operating in summer air conditioning mode, the software includes the calculation of the seasonal performance coefficient SEER defined as the ratio between the annual cooling requirement and the annual electricity consumption.

The data resulting from the energy calculations can be stored in the database and used within the REF.WEB commercial configurator to automatically generate ErP Directive 2009/125/EC complaint energy fiches.

Commercial management

Thanks to REF.BOX, in addition to the heat pumps technical characterization, the user can also manage autonomously and completely the commercial stuff, associating all the accessories, price lists, texts, documents and images necessary to the selection and drafting of the offer documents within the REF.WEB commercial configurator.

Specifically, REF.BOX allows to define entire series or single heat pumps:

  • multilingual descriptions;
  • multilingual images and dimensional that may be differentiated according to the selected accessories;
  • multilingual documentation to be attached to the offer;
  • operating limits subordinate to the selected accessories;
  • accessories with rules of incompatibility, coupling, prerequisite, alternative associates, alternatives of which one is always mandatory;
  • accessories association with management of number, coding, images, descriptions, price, weight, refrigerant charge;
  • coupling with one or more markets or distributors;
  • distinct price lists by market type or by distributor;
  • commercial visibility through user level assignment.