Datasets of Faults in Variable Air Volume Terminal Units in a Multi-Zone Commercial Building

Sungkyun Jung; Yeobeom Yoon; Piljae Im

doi:10.1038/s41597-025-05063-z

Datasets of Faults in Variable Air Volume Terminal Units in a Multi-Zone Commercial Building

Sungkyun Jung
, Yeobeom Yoon
, Piljae Im

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Faults in HVAC systems can decrease system efficiency and equipment lifespan, leading to 5%–30% of energy consumption being wasted in commercial buildings. We identified two common faults in HVAC variable air volume systems: a stuck damper fault in the variable air volume terminal unit and a discharge airflow sensor fault. We conducted three sets of damper stuck tests and two sets of airflow sensor tests, each including a fault-free scenario and scenarios with varying levels of faults, over one day. The faults were implemented in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s two-story Flexible Research Platform building to generate a high-quality, well-controlled dataset covering fault-induced and fault-free scenarios. The test building, fault test scenarios, and data validation are described here. The open-source dataset includes 1 min intervals of weather and building data on the presence and absence of building faults. This dataset can be used to analyze the effects of HVAC system faults on system operation and indoor building conditions, and to develop or evaluate a fault detection and diagnosis algorithm.

Original language	English
Article number	763
Journal	Scientific Data
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05063-z
State	Published - Dec 2025

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by DOE’s Office of Science and Building Technologies Office (BTO). This research used resources of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. This work was funded by fieldwork proposal CEBT105 under DOE BTO activity nos. BT0302000 and BT0305000. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle LLC under contract DEAC05-00OR22725 with DOE. The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. The authors would like to thank Dr. Brian Walker, Emerging Technologies Program Manager, and Dr. Cecilia Johnson-Hayman, Technical Manager of Building Controls and Grid-Edge Portfolios in the BTO for their continuous support.

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10.1038/s41597-025-05063-z

Cite this

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abstract = "Faults in HVAC systems can decrease system efficiency and equipment lifespan, leading to 5\%–30\% of energy consumption being wasted in commercial buildings. We identified two common faults in HVAC variable air volume systems: a stuck damper fault in the variable air volume terminal unit and a discharge airflow sensor fault. We conducted three sets of damper stuck tests and two sets of airflow sensor tests, each including a fault-free scenario and scenarios with varying levels of faults, over one day. The faults were implemented in Oak Ridge National Laboratory{\textquoteright}s two-story Flexible Research Platform building to generate a high-quality, well-controlled dataset covering fault-induced and fault-free scenarios. The test building, fault test scenarios, and data validation are described here. The open-source dataset includes 1 min intervals of weather and building data on the presence and absence of building faults. This dataset can be used to analyze the effects of HVAC system faults on system operation and indoor building conditions, and to develop or evaluate a fault detection and diagnosis algorithm.",

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Datasets of Faults in Variable Air Volume Terminal Units in a Multi-Zone Commercial Building

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