About the ERC
Douglas Kosar Education
Experience Mr. Kosar began his career at the Gas Research Institute (GRI), the research arm of the natural gas industry and the precursor to the present day Gas Technology Institute (GTI). In the 1980’s, Mr. Kosar teamed GRI, HVAC manufacturers and end users to introduce desiccant dehumidification to their first commercial applications for improved humidity control and reduced HVAC & R (refrigeration) operating costs. In part as result of these market development efforts at GRI, both active desiccant (dehumidification) and passive desiccant (energy recovery) technology are now entering into the HVAC mainstream utilizing another market driver – two to four fold increases in standard/code required ventilation rates to maintain IAQ. HVAC improvements are needed to cost effectively treat additional outside air and maintain acceptable indoor humidity. To this end Mr. Kosar managed the GRI RD&C program in desiccant technology over the 1980’s over a broad front of activities including: • standards and codes Mr. Kosar left GRI at the end of the 1980’s and from 1990 to 1995, he managed Industrial Sales, Service, and Product and Business Development operations at the Cargocaire Division of the Munters Corporation -- the world’s leading manufacturer of desiccant dehumidification equipment. While there he supervised representative, sales engineering and marketing efforts and field service operations for diverse industrial applications of desiccant dehumidifiers and integrated dehumidification systems. He also managed introduction of new product lines with design, costing, pricing and profit responsibility. In 1995, he returned to GRI. Over 1995 to 2000, Mr. Kosar established himself as an expert in the desiccant dehumidification and energy recovery field, a sought after speaker in the HVAC/IAQ area, and a respected developer of the right HVAC&R technology for the right building application. In 2001, he joined UIC-ERC to pursue a broader agenda in the building sciences area unconstrained by gas industry only needs. Since joining ERC, he has managed/executed projects in the building sciences area with a diverse client base including the City of Chicago, State of Illinois, California Energy Commission (CEC), Association of Energy Engineers (AEE), Gas Technology Institute (GTI), Department of Energy (DOE), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), National Energy Management Institute (NMEI), and National Center for Energy Management and Building Technologies (NCEMBT); along with several manufacturers including Trane, SEMCO, and DryKor. Past ERC projects included evaluations of advanced humidity control systems with multiple clients integrating desiccant technology (dehumidifiers or enthalpy exchangers) with conventional vapor compression cooling coil equipment, ventilation/humidity control engineering and IAQ support services for DOE, and web based IAQ workshop development for AEE. ERC also developed presentations, planned itineraries and staffed events to demonstrate the IAQ benefits and energy savings potential of advanced humidity control equipment for buildings and processes using a unique, two-zone, mobile ORNL showcase trailer where visitors experienced first hand the difference between poor humidity control with conventional AC equipment (in zone 1), and the improved comfort from desiccant based humidity control (in zone 2). Present ERC projects include the investigation of moisture resistant building envelopes with GTI and CEC, and the development of high performance home technologies with NCEMBT and DOE. With GTI/CEC, ERC is developing a water damage database of the geographic/climatic distribution of residential insurance claims in California and evaluating building assemblies in water intrusion experiments. With NCEMBT/DOE, ERC is analyzing high performance wall construction and ventilation systems for energy efficient, airtight homes in collaboration with DOE's Building America (BA) Program. Mr. Kosar received a B.S. (1979) and M.S. (1981) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is active in ASHRAE and ARI on standard, equipment and technical committees. He has over 30 publications in the HVAC area, including co-authorship of the 1997 ASHRAE Journal Article of the Year, eted “Dehumidification and Cooling Loads from Ventilation Air”. Contact Information
Engineering Research Facility (MC 251) The University of Illinois at Chicago
Learn more about ventilation loads, fresh air standards, desiccant technologies, and building applications in the following articles … "Dehumidification and Cooling Loads from
Ventilation Air" "Copyright 1997, American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. This posting
is by permission of the ASHRAE Journal. This article may not be
copied nor distributed in either paper or digital form without ASHRAE's
permission. Contact ASHRAE at www.ashrae.org."
"Dehumidification Issues of Standard 62
[Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality]" "Copyright 1998, American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. This posting
is by permission of the ASHRAE Journal. This article may not be
copied nor distributed in either paper or digital form without ASHRAE's
permission. Contact ASHRAE at www.ashrae.org."
"Evaluating Active Desiccant Systems for
Ventilating Commercial Buildings"
"The Answer is 3 [Engineering Solutions
for IAQ in Health Care Facilities]"
"Dehumidification System Enhancements" Using common performance metrics, learn how a conventional direct expansion (DX) cooling system and its dehumidification performance compares to three other DX based systems augmented with enhanced dehumidification components including a wraparound heat pipe heat exchanger, a desiccant dehumidifier also in a "wraparound" configuration, and a post cooling coil desiccant dehumidifier regenerated by condenser waste heat. The findings show how these three alternative systems define a best practices performance which can: 1) approach the high performance of an ideal cooling system that can shift its sensible capacity to latent capacity without an efficiency penalty; and 2) far exceed the poor performance of the simple but inefficient condenser waste heat reheat approach. "Copyright 1999, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. This posting is by permission of the ASHRAE Journal. This article may not be copied nor distributed in either paper or digital form without ASHRAE's permission. Contact ASHRAE at www.ashrae.org."
"Humidity Effects on Supermarket Refrigerated Case Energy Performance: A
Database Review" Learn about the direct and strong interaction between the refrigerated display cases and space conditioning systems and the store air conditions. The conditioned store air exchanges heat and moisture with the refrigerated cases. Most refrigerated cases are designed to operate in an environment of 55% RH and 75°F (24°C). However, removing additional moisture with HVAC systems to lower store RH levels at 75°F (24°C) could yield overall HVAC and refrigeration energy cost savings. Drier store air will reduce the latent load on the refrigeration compressors by reducing the moisture entering the display cases. This will lead to less condensation and frost formation, reductions in defrost cycles, decreases in anti-sweat heater energy requirements, and improvements in temperature stability of products. It has been over a decade since Howell and Adams (1991) surveyed the “Effects of Indoor Space Conditions on Refrigerated Display Case Performance” under ASHRAE Research Project 596. At that time they cited the “limited amount of experimental or measured data available.” Since then, laboratory and field work in this area has generated significant additional findings, although not always extensive or consistent in their results. This paper will provide an updated review of currently available databases, from computer simulations, laboratory tests, and field evaluations, that address the effect of supermarket humidity on refrigerated case energy performance.. "Copyright 1999, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. This posting is by permission of the ASHRAE Journal. This article may not be copied nor distributed in either paper or digital form without ASHRAE's permission. Contact ASHRAE at www.ashrae.org."
""What's Weather Got to do With It: Correlations Between Mold Insurance
Claims and Weather Databases in Texas"
We all know limiting moisture problems and mold growth in homes requires a combination of controlling moisture levels in interior spaces and managing water vapor transport and bulk water intrusion in the building envelope. But might climate have something to do with the prevalence of mold growth in a given location? In 2001, the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) issued a Special Call for Homeowners Mold Experience to compile a database of information about mold claims. This cursory analysis couples that database with key historical weather conditions from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for that same time period to show more humid climate zones in Texas to be more prone to incidences of mold and resulting mold claims. A statistical correlation between higher outdoor dew point temperatures and greater numbers of mold damage claims (per 1,000 policyholders) is clearly evident. However, no such clear correlation is evident between precipitation amounts and the number of mold damage claims. ""Copyright C 2006 Key Communications Inc. 540-720-5584. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. For more information visit www.moldmag.com "
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