BamaLoad is a free cooling and heating load calculation program (Windows OS) that was designed by a graduate student in the Deparment of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alabama. The program is based on various ASHRAE standards. It inlcudes sensible, latent, & total load, and is based on CTLD/CLF method. The output produced is at maximum dry bulb, maximum wet bulb, and for all bin temperatures at 30 locations.

The program can be downloaded from here: http://www.geokiss.com/software/BamaLoad.zip

To start a project, you enter a Project ID and select the location which automatically populates the latitude and longitude, elevation and standard pressure. Many major US cities are included or you can use the “user defined” option.   From there, data is entered into the four tabs provided for outside cooling, inside cooling, outside heating, and inside heating.  From there you proceed to zone data. Multiple zones can be entered.  External loads can then be entered. Characteristics of each wall and the roof can be defined. Then “miscellaneous” loads are entered; these include partitions, ceiling, and floor. Next internal loads are captured - equipment, lights, appliances, and occupancy. The next thing to consider is the ventilation & duct gain/loss, for both occupied and unoccupied situations.

Once all of the data is entered, a peak design analysis or bin analysis can be run. After selecting some options, the Microsoft Excel reports are generated.

This is a well-written, useful program for the HVAC engineer - and the price is right!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under Mechanical Engineering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.