Armstrong Fluid Technology packed 80 engineers, designers and building owners into the Honoré Room of The Palmer House Hilton Hotel July 21 in Downtown Chicago.

The pump manufacturer provided the attendees in-depth information about its Design Envelope technology which “is a demand based intelligent control solution that models equipment and system behaviour, monitors actual system conditions, and dynamically adjusts equipment operation to match system demand.”

Matt Berrell, an national sales manager with Armstrong, oversaw the “Challenging the Traditional Approach to Pump Selection and Control” which laid out that 40% of total United States energy usage comes from buildings, 32% from industry and 28% from transportation.

Within that 40% of building energy usage, 17% of that is from HVAC systems. Jumping off these statistics, Burrell and Armstrong say that its Design Envelope strategy is to ensure that pumps are designed for “best efficiency operation” of where the building load is 90% of the time as opposed to peak load demands.

One interesting wrinkle to Armstrong’s Design Envelope Symposium was how it integrated audience participation. Before the event, the hosts handed out little remotes with buttons numbered 0-9. During the presentations by Berrell and Regional Sales Manager Jonathon Todd, they would ask attendees questions. A 10- to 15-second timer would begin and the answers would be calculated and shown on the projection screen.

Here are a couple of questions Armstrong asked:

1) Why do you think buildings underperform? The top two answers were lack of integrated design approach (32%) and oversized equipment (30%).

2) How frequently do you track your HVAC system performance? The answers were monthly (27%), annually (22%), semi-annually (22%), daily (19%), weekly (11%).
As a spectator of the event, I thought that making sure the audience remained engaged in the presentations was critical. Each of the four, hour-long presentations by Armstrong spurred great question-and-answers sessions at the end as well.

Armstrong Fluid Technology’s has held 18 Design Envelope Symposiums in 2015 with nine in the United States, four in Canada and others in India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Cairo and Beirut. Contact Armstrong Fluid Technology to see if one is coming to your city — or close by — in the future. It’s definitely worth your time.
 

(Pictured above): Armstrong Fluid Technology National Sales Manager Matt Berrell speaks to a group of approximately 80 engineers, designers and building owners during the company’s Design Envelope Symposium at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago.