Ventilation: 50 years of the Engineers Newsletter

October 10, 2022

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As mentioned in our January blog post, 2022 marks the 50-year anniversary of Trane’s Engineers Newsletter publication! This month we hear from a frequent EN author, Trane Applications Engineer John Murphy.

Ventilation has been used in buildings for much, much longer than air conditioning has been around. Even so, the world was reminded of the importance of proper ventilation in buildings during the recent pandemic.

Ventilation can be used to help improve indoor air quality. For decades, engineering professionals who design HVAC systems have looked to industry standards and codes for minimum ventilation requirements. And while this year marks the 50-year anniversary of Trane’s Engineers Newsletter, next year will mark 50 years since the initial publication of ASHRAE® Standard 62.1, one of the foundational standards used for designing ventilation systems.

Over the years, several ENs have been published to discuss ventilation practices and strategies. Some issues explained the requirements of Standard 62.1, including both the Ventilation Rate Procedure and the IAQ Procedure. Other issues described emerging ventilation design strategies—such as dedicated outdoor-air systems, displacement ventilation, or underfloor air distribution—and ventilation control strategies—such as demand-controlled ventilation or ventilation reset in a multiple-zone VAV system. And then more recently, we used the EN to share the ASHRAE® Epidemic Task Force’s recommendations for operating HVAC systems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Included below are links to a few of the past ENs related to ventilation strategies, in case you missed them:

Thanks for reading and be sure to subscribe if you want to receive future issues of the Trane Engineers Newsletter!

Kasey Boxleitner

About the author
John Murphy, Applications Engineer

John has been with Trane since 1993. His primary responsibility as an applications engineer is to aid system design engineers and Trane sales personnel in the proper design and application of HVAC systems. His primary areas of expertise include energy efficiency, dehumidification, air-to-air energy recovery, psychrometry, ventilation, dedicated outdoor-air systems, VAV systems, and ASHRAE Standards 62.1 and 90.1. He is the author of numerous Trane application manuals and Engineers Newsletters and is a frequent presenter on Trane’s Engineers Newsletter Live program series.

John is ASHRAE Fellow and past chair of that society’s “Mechanical Dehumidifiers” technical committee. He has authored many articles for the ASHRAE Journal and was a featured presenter on ASHRAE’s international webcast, “Dedicated Outdoor Air Systems.”