Modeling the Cooling Capacity of an Ice Rink

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I am modeling a large building with three ice rinks in it. The cooling load of the spaces associated with the rinks is massive when you include 2500+ spectators. I know that the ice rink itself (19290 ft squared, 4 inches thick) is going to provide cooling to the space, but I don't know how to accurately calculate the amount of cooling a sheet of ice that size would provide or how to incorporate it into the model. 

The biggest issue here is that the estimated load of the entire building has been set at 300 tons. The Olympic-sized arena alone (the one with all of the spectators) has a load of 261 tons for cooling, and upwards of 600 with the spectators included. Hopefully if I can model the additional cooling provided by the ice in the space, these numbers can be greatly reduced.

If anybody has any other advice on accurately modeling the arena which houses an ice rink (i do not have to model the rink itself as this is being done by another contractor with their own equipment), it would be greatly appreciated.

akingsbury's picture
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I have not done a rink, it sounds like there may be a way to enter it into your partions, as a horizontal wall and a Constant temp for Adjacent Space Method...then create a new partion with R=1. I'm not sure what the surface temp of a rink is, but my guess is that it's close to 32°F or less. This will show up as part of your envelope as a benefit to your cooling system, but as a load on your heating system.

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Bobba_Fett's picture
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DOE 2.2 has the ability to model ice rinks.  If you look at the DOE22 dictionary (http://doe2.com/download/doe-22/) there is a section on "Ice Skating Rinks".  eQUEST can handle these keywords being in the .inp file but you will have to edit the text file to assign these values.  You can classify the area, set-point of ice tempteratures, etc.

grandocu's picture
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