ARE 3401 - Principles of Mechanical Engineering for Buildings

3 lecture hours 0 lab hours 3 credits

Course Description
This design course explores fundamental principles of building mechanical systems, including heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC), plumbing, and fire protection systems. Building upon prior coursework in thermal sciences and fluid mechanics, students apply principles of thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, and psychrometrics to size and evaluate building systems that support occupant health, safety, comfort, and welfare. Students engage relevant codes and standards and examine the environmental and economic impacts of building energy and water use.
Prereq: CAE 2412, CAE 2711
Note: None
This course meets the following Raider Core CLO Requirement: None

Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

Classify and describe a complete air-conditioning and distribution system including its major hardware components
Analyze the physiological considerations for human comfort in buildings and calculate its related indices
Describe outdoor and indoor thermal design conditions
Calculate the heating and cooling coil loads for a building
Describe design principles for both supply side and waste/vent side plumbing based on the importance of the health, safety, and welfare of people
Calculate plumbing line sizes for both the water supply service piping and distribution piping within a building
Describe how water quality is determined and identify which water treatment technologies are used to remove a given type of contaminant
Explain the importance of active and passive fire protection systems for helping to ensure a safe building environment
Describe how building energy and water use impacts the larger environment
As part of their development of an Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM), students will reflect on and connect course principles to prior learning and future design courses or professional applications.

Prerequisites by Topic

Steady state 1st Law of Thermodynamics energy analysis of open systems
Thermophysical properties of pure fluids
Properties of moist air and ability to read the psychrometric chart
One dimensional, steady state combined conduction and convection heat transfer using the electric resistance analogy to determine equivalent thermal resistances
Finding major and minor losses associated with internal pipe flows
Calculating pressure losses in piping systems using both the Darcy Weisbach and Hazen Williams equations
Principles of fans and pumps; ability to read a pump curve and find the pump system curve for a given application

Course Topics

HVAC introduction
HVAC codes & standards
Physiological considers for human comfort
Indoor design conditions & ASHRAE standard 55
Indoor & outdoor air quality
Ventilation air & ASHRAE standard 62.1
Energy requirements & ASHRAE 90.1
Moist air properties & psychrometric chart
Fundamental psychrometric processes
Complete psychrometric processes
Heat transfer
Infiltration load
Ventilation load
Total heating coil load
Cooling load temperature difference (CLTD)
Solar radiation
Building zoning
HVAC systems
Plumbing introduction & codes
Domestic water service sizing
Domestic water distribution sizing
Sanitary waste & vent systems
Stormwater systems
Water chemistry & water quality
Water treatment technologies & drinking water standards
Water reuse systems
Natural gas systems
Fire protection introduction
Fire chemistry
Fire hazard classifications
Types of fire protection systems

Coordinator
David Grassl, P.E.

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ARE 3401 - Principles of Mechanical Engineering for Buildings