Fault Detection for Rapidly Diagnosing Building Problems

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Building systems fault detection and diagnostics are not a new phenomenon. They’ve been used for decades in a number of industries including aviation, automotive, and manufacturing. For the last 20 years or so, they’ve been used in building HVAC systems. Today, as building automation systems (BAS) have focused on a networking approach, they are increasingly important to the entire operational system, including electrical, security, and lighting control.

What is a Fault Detection System?

The building industry has made huge strides in monitoring and controlling energy use in buildings. But just because a building has a BAS backbone doesn’t mean it’s always operating at peak performance. Two main reasons for this are:

  • Equipment degradation over time.

  • Less-than-ideal changes to building systems that go unnoticed for a long period of time.

The good news is that when mechanical components fail, the BAS compensates by using the rest of the system to continue generating the same operational conditionals. The bad news is that can reduce the system’s efficiency.

Fault detection systems uncover errors in physical systems and seek to identify the source of the problems in lighting, HVAC, elevators, and other specialized equipment. And they do it with as little human intervention as possible.

How Does Fault Detection Work?

Fault detection systems have four key procedures:

  • Fault detection

  • Fault isolation

  • Fault identification

  • Fault evaluation

Once a fault is confirmed, it’s isolated and classified based on its type, environment, and time of detection. The fault is then analyzed and evaluated as to its impact on performance categories like comfort, energy, and cost. Building managers or supervisors then decide on how to respond to the fault and whether that response calls for corrective action or further investigation.

Why Implement a Building Fault Detection System?

Operational and equipment faults can have a huge negative impact on a building, reducing energy efficiency by up to 30%. A fault detection system like Kaizen from CopperTree Analytics implements a proactive approach that can improve building comfort and performance, decrease energy use, and save time and money. It can also monitor individual components and use both historic and real-time data to recognize and report operating issues, giving you a run-down of current system performance.

Undetected equipment faults can lead to serious underlying problems. It’s important to keep in mind that a fault isn’t always the complete failure of a piece of equipment. It can also be caused by a shift in performance or human error. A fault detection system helps improve energy efficiency and operational performance while giving you the information you need to make smart decisions on deferring or immediately addressing a problem. And that works to improve the owner’s bottom line.

Christopher Ramos