Drying-Equipment Sensible Heat Load and Ventilation
The sensible heat drying equipment dumps into a chamber, and the ventilation to clear it.
Example
You enter
- Total equipment draw (watts) 4000
- Acceptable temperature rise (°F) 10
- Ventilation / AC airflow (cfm, 0 = sealed) 600
You get
- Sensible heat load 13648 BTU/hr
- Ventilation to hold the rise 1264 cfm
- Rise at the entered airflow 21.06
Details, formula, and sources
Turns the air movers, dehumidifiers, and scrubbers running in a drying chamber into the sensible heat they dump (3.412 BTU/hr per watt) and the ventilation needed to hold a target temperature rise (the 1.08 sensible relation): the heat load, the makeup cfm to cap the rise, and the rise an entered exhaust airflow actually delivers. An overheated chamber leaves the efficient-evaporation band. Envelope losses and the building HVAC govern; this is a screen. IICRC S500 names the band.
sensible_btu_hr = total_equipment_watts x 3.412; required_cfm = sensible_btu_hr / (1.08 x target_temp_rise_f); temp_rise_at_exhaust = exhaust_cfm > 0 ? sensible_btu_hr / (1.08 x exhaust_cfm) : null.
Watt-to-heat conversion (3.412 BTU/hr per watt) and the 1.08 standard-air sensible-heat relation, by name; ANSI/IICRC S500. Field-arithmetic identities, not edition-bound.
The watt-to-heat conversion and the 1.08 sensible relation are public HVAC arithmetic; the efficient-evaporation band is named in the published IICRC S500.
Estimate. AHJ and licensed professional govern.
Field names used by the API: total_equipment_watts, target_temp_rise_f, exhaust_cfm, sensible_btu_hr, required_cfm, temp_rise_at_exhaust
- Standard air the 1.08 sensible factor assumes standard air (0.075 lb/ft^3, 0.24 BTU/lb-degF); altitude and temperature shift itASHRAE / IICRC S500
- All draw becomes heat essentially every watt the chamber's equipment draws lands in the room as sensible heatfirst principles