Heat exchangers play a decisive role in the supply concept and are used when
system separation is required. They can be found:

• in district heating distribution stations,
• in domestic hot water heating,
• as heating and cooling coils in ventilation systems,
• as heating surfaces for room heating
• and in heat generators.

During commissioning, the temperatures and mass flow rates are usually set
too high to ensure security of supply. This results in an increase of the
auxiliary energy consumption of the installed supply pumps and fans.
Incorrectly set supply temperatures make sure that the heat exchanger is no
longer operated in an optimum range and the return temperatures are raised
unnecessarily.

In the research project an optimization procedure is developed, which
performs an automated tuning of the installed heat exchangers (see figure).
First, a mathematical model of the operating characteristics is identified (step
1) and then optimal setpoints for the supply temperatures and mass flows are
determined (step 2).