| Summary: | This article is focused on hydronic heating systems that use pumps as the control actuators instead of valves. Those systems are called “demand-oriented”, while the systems being controlled by valves are called “supply-oriented”. Reader gets an overview of various versions of both demand- and supply-oriented systems using both one- and two-pipe topologies, supported by a brief historical outline, current state of the art and basic advantages and disadvantages of the introduced hydronic systems. The special interest is given to the one-pipe demand-oriented systems, which offer several benefits in comparison with nowadays widespread systems (mainly supply-oriented two-pipe), however, the computation complexity of design of such systems inhibits their more frequent utilization. This paper also introduces a computation and optimization tool to help with the design of one-pipe demand oriented hydronic heating systems, which eases the designer to size the AHU (Air Handling Units) and to set the mass flows of fluid in the system branches.
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