A Unified Python Framework for Direct PPO-based Control of AHUs with Economizer Logic and CO2-Constrained Ventilation

Optimizing HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) can enhance a building's energy efficiency while providing comfort levels for its occupants. Using conventional control systems to maintain HVAC functions is often difficult because of the nonlinear characteristics of a building envelope as it experiences stochastic load variations over time. This paper presents a new approach to optimizing HVAC systems through the use of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms and the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) algorithm implemented in a custom Python performance environment. The DRL system uses a second order resistor-capacitor thermal model and an integrated dynamic mass balance of CO2 to replicate the complex physics associated with buildings. One major innovation of this study is a "Hierarchical Flow Logic," which provides the means to ensure that indoor air quality (IAQ) is maintained by overriding the accepted actions of the agent that cause CO2 to exceed 1000 ppm. In addition, an enthalpy-based economiser is used to create free cooling from the outdoor environment. The experimental data shows that compared to PID controllers tuned by GA or traditional On-Off controls, a PPO agent has better temperature stability and energy efficiency overall. An end-to-end pipeline provides an avenue for robust and generalized solutions to help implement smart building energy management within the context of real hardware implementation.

Energy-Environment evaluation and Forecast of a Novel Regenerative turboshaft engine combine cycle with DNN application

In this integrated study, a turboshaft engine was evaluated by adding inlet air cooling and regenerative cooling based on energy-environment analysis. First, impacts of flight-Mach number, flight altitude, the compression ratio of compressor-1 in the main cycle, the turbine inlet temperature of turbine-1 in the main cycle, temperature fraction of turbine-2, the compression ratio of the accessory cycle, and inlet air temperature variation in inlet air cooling system on some functional performance parameters of Regenerative turboshaft engine cycle equipped with inlet air cooling system such as power-specific fuel consumption, Power output, thermal efficiency, and mass flow rate of Nitride oxides (NOx) including NO and NO2 has been investigated via using hydrogen as fuel working. Consequently, based on the analysis, a model was developed to predict the energy-environment performance of the Regenerative turboshaft engine cycle equipped with a cooling air cooling system based on a deep neural network (DNN) with 2 hidden layers with 625 neurons for each hidden layer. The model proposed to predict the amount of thermal efficiency and the mass flow rate of nitride oxide (NOx) containing NO and NO2. The results demonstrated the accuracy of the integrated DNN model with the proper amount of the MSE, MAE, and RMSD cost function for both predicted outputs to validate both testing and training data. Also, R and R^2 are noticeably calculated very close to 1 for both thermal Efficiency and NOx emission mass flow rate for both validations of thermal efficiency and NOx emission mass flow rate prediction values with its training and its testing data.