Development and Application of a Novel Non-Iterative Balancing Method for Hydronic Systems

The improvement of efficiency in new and existing buildings is one of the key aspects in achieving the climate change targets promoted by international regulatory and technical bodies, and among the measures that deserve renewed attention is the balancing of hydronic systems. However, the balancing procedures currently applied have not been updated for decades and are still largely unimplemented, as they are mainly based on cumbersome and iterative procedures. This paper deals with the proposal and advanced adaptation of a non-iterative balancing method previously developed for air systems, known as the progressive flow method (PFM). The application to water systems of the PFM’s concepts includes some aspects of an existing empirical method called the compensated method (CM) and overcomes its main limitations; moreover, the original PFM has been radically rethought in its implementation aspects, taking advantage of the tightness of water distribution systems, minimising instrumentation and the number of measurement operations, to definitively overcome the iterative nature of the currently applied methods. Experimental validation was carried out. Compared with a standard method, the enhanced PFM reduced the number of measurements by 48% and the number of balancing operations by 41%, achieving final flow rates within tolerances and the same configuration of balancing devices.