Automated fault detection of HVAC RTUs for proactive maintenance

Swarm IQ allows Encycle Swarm Logic energy management technology subscribers to have access to automated fault detection of HVAC rooftop units (RTUs) across their entire building and enterprise-wide portfolios.

Encycle Corporation, a software technology company focused on helping commercial enterprise and utility customers improve the efficiency of their HVAC systems using IoT-enabled services, announced a new set of patented data-driven tools that allow facility managers to gain visibility into the maintenance and efficiency of their HVAC assets. With Swarm IQ, Encycle customers subscribed to the company’s Swarm Logic® energy management technology now have access to automated fault detection of HVAC rooftop units (RTUs) across their entire building and enterprise-wide portfolios.

Swarm IQ provides actionable intelligence that helps companies become more proactive with their HVAC maintenance activities and more efficient in budget spending. The unique value-added technology is now visualized through Swarm Portal, which leverages Encycle’s web-based reporting and analytics capabilities. The platform provides intuitive insights into Swarm Logic performance, energy savings, and the health and operations of HVAC assets.

“Swarm IQ’s powerful new functionality helps Encycle customers go one step further with their preventive maintenance scheduling, identifying equipment issues early on so they can be remedied before they become an even costlier problem,” said Steve Alexander, Encycle President and COO. “We are continually enhancing our autonomous suite of offerings developed for enterprise-level customers and utility customers to help them reduce their operational costs and meet sustainability goals,” he added.

Encycle’s Executive Vice President of Sales, Ana-Paula Issa, notes that Swarm IQ differentiates Encycle from other HVAC energy management service companies.

“Our Swarm Logic technology is unique in itself, providing commercial and industrial customers with unprecedented HVAC energy savings,” Issa remarked. “Swarm IQ adds a crucial layer of actionable intelligence that removes yet another burden for facility staff while empowering them to reduce their energy consumption and related emissions autonomously. Swarm Logic is truly a game-changing transformational technology that’s pushing buildings to become smarter while requiring little or no capital investment to enjoy substantial rewards.”

Swarm Logic HVAC energy management technology performs five key functions within a closed-loop system to deliver up to 20% reductions in HVAC-related kW, kWh, and CO2. The process repeats itself 24/7/365, with Swarm Logic operating quietly in the background and requiring no human interaction to maintain or monitor its actions.

Swarm Logic can be integrated with a building automation system (BAS), connected thermostats, and IoT-enabled equipment to dynamically synergize power-hungry HVAC RTUs. The AI-enhanced technology enables RTUs to operate most efficiently in response to changing conditions such as outdoor temperature, building occupancy levels, and RTU performance. Instead of operating in isolation, the RTUs become part of a closed-loop system that coordinates RTU activity, balancing energy consumption more logically among the individual RTUs. This approach maximizes efficiency while maintaining desired building comfort levels.

Encycle serves a broad range of markets, including retail stores, grocery stores, shopping centers, restaurants, entertainment venues, offices, schools, distribution centers, and light/medium manufacturing. Customers whose buildings range from 7,500 square feet to 2 million square feet or more realize the greatest benefit from Encycle’s Swarm Logic technology.

Click here for more facility management news related to HVAC.

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The San Andreas Fault is an 800-mile-long sliding tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. It cleaves California from north to south, as the two tectonic plates slowly grind against each other, threatening to give rise to massive earthquakes.

San Andreas comprises three major sections which can move independently. In the southern and the northern sections, the plates are locked most of the time, causing stresses to build over years, decades, or even centuries, and occasionally leading to large earthquakes, such as the catastrophic one from San Francisco in 1906 that had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed over 3,000 people.

In the central section though, which separates the other two, the plates slip past each other slowly, at a steady 26 millimeters rate each year. Until recently, scientists thought that this so-called “aseismic creep” prevents stresses from building and does not lead to large earthquakes.

However, a new study published in the journal Geology suggests that this central creeping section of the San Andreas Fault has in fact hosted many major earthquakes throughout history, some of them possibly happening fairly recently. By using novel chemical-analysis methods to calculate the degrees of heating that the sedimentary rocks withstood in the distant past – a sign that earthquakes took place there – the researchers argue that the creep may have witnessed over 100 earthquakes during its history. Some of these quakes may have been even larger than the disastrous 1906 San Francisco one.

“The creeping section is a difficult place to do Paleoseismology, because evidence for earthquakes can be easily erased by the creep,” said Morgan Page, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey. “If this holds up, this is the first evidence of a big seismic rupture in this part of the fault.”

“Ultimately, our work points to the potential for higher magnitude earthquakes in central California and highlights the importance of including the central (San Andreas Fault) and other creeping faults in seismic hazard analysis,” the study authors added.

However, according to the researchers, although massive earthquakes did occur along the creep and thus they could happen again, since tectonic strain is not currently accumulating at significant rates in the area, no such disastrous events are foreseen in the near future.

“People should not be alarmed,” concluded study co-author Stephen Cox, a geologist at Columbia University. “Building codes in California are now quite good. Seismic events are inevitable. Work like this helps us figure out what is the biggest possible event, and helps everyone prepare.”

—

By Andrei Ionescu, Earth.com Staff Writer

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A slow-moving central section of the 800-mile San Andreas Fault line in California could play host to much larger earthquakes than previously thought, according to a new study.

Situated between Parkfield and Hollister, the section undergoes aseismic fault, with two sides of the fault moving imperceptibly slowly, releasing stress over time without causing a large earthquake.

Whereas the main two sections sit, almost unmoving, grinding against each other slowly building up energy – until one day it comes out as a giant earthquake. 

However, a new study by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, found that this slow-moving region is also capable of producing large earthquakes on a similar scale as those elsewhere on the line.

They discovered this by looking back through the geological record for the fault, and found it has experienced earthquakes of magnitude seven and higher, which is on a par with the 1906 quake that destroyed San Francisco – the late ‘Big One’. 

The monster San Andreas Fault splits California from south to north, caused by two tectonic plates slowly grinding against each other over 800 miles.

This new discovery will only add to the risk of a ‘Big One’ happening, as many believe the region is long overdue for a quake on the scale of the 1906 event. 

A new study by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, found that this slow moving region is capable of producing very large scale earthquakes on a similar scale as those elsewhere on the line

The monster San Andreas Fault splits California from south to north, caused by two tectonic plates slowly grinding against each other – always on the edge of producing ‘The Big One’ – a large scale earthquake that would cause death and destruction. Stock image

Genevieve Coffey, an earthquake geologist at GNS Science in New Zealand, who did his undergraduate study at Columbia, examined the three sections of the fault.

Each of the three sections can move independently, and in each case they are trying to move past each other in opposite directions.

In the most southerly and northerly sections of the fault, the plates are locked most of the time, stuck together in an immovable embrace, that causes stress to build up over years, decades and centuries that ‘has to come out at some point’.

When it finally releases this built up stress, it results in violent earthquake, caused by the two sides lurching past each other after years of being stuck. 

The central section is different – it sits between these two unmoving zones – and in this middle area the plates slip past one another at a steady 26mm per year, preventing extreme stresses from ever building up.

At least that has been the case as long as humanity has been monitoring this section of the San Andreas Fault. But the latest theory suggests it poses just as big of a risk as the static portions of the fault line.

Rocks drilled and removed from two miles below the surface suggest the central section has hosted many major earthquakes throughout history.

Some could have been fairly recent, at least within hundreds of years, rather than millions, according to the researchers. 

In the most southerly and northerly sections of the fault, the plates are locked most of the time, stuck together in an immovable embrace, that causes stress to build up over years, decades and centuries that ‘has to come out at some point’

The central section is different – it sits between these two unmoving zones – and in this middle area the plates slip past one another at a steady 26mm per year, preventing extreme stresses from ever building up

IS CALIFORNIA AT RISK OF A DEVASTATING MEGAQUAKE? 

The U.S. Geological Survey has warned the risk of ‘the big one’ hitting California has increased dramatically.

Researchers analysed data from the state’s complex system of active geological faults, as well as new methods for translating these data into earthquake likelihoods.

The estimate for the likelihood that California will experience a magnitude 8 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years has increased from about 4.7% to about 7.0%, they say.

‘We are fortunate that seismic activity in California has been relatively low over the past century,’ said Tom Jordan, Director of the Southern California Earthquake Center and a co-author of the study.

‘But we know that tectonic forces are continually tightening the springs of the San Andreas fault system, making big quakes inevitable.’ 

Seismologist Lucy Jones from the US Geological Survey warned that people need to accept the fact catastrophe is imminent, and prepare themselves. 

Dr Jones said our decision to not accept it will only mean more people suffer as scientists warn the ‘Big One’ is now overdue to hit California.  

They subjected the ancient rocks to a new type of chemical-analysis method that allowed them to gauge the heating of rocks during prehistoric quakes. 

It allowed them to predict how large these quakes would have been, finding evidence of quakes up to a magnitude seven within the central zone. 

‘This means we can get larger earthquakes on the central section than we thought,’ said Coffey, adding ‘we should be aware that there is this potential, that it is not always just continuous creep.’ 

California has been on edge, waiting for the next ‘Big One’, which many assume is long overdue, with increasing build-up of stored energy from the fault line. 

The northern section hosted the catastrophic 1906 San Francisco magnitude 7.9 earthquake, which killed 3,000 people and leveled much of the city.

It also caused the 1989 magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta quake, which killed more than 60 and collapsed a major elevated freeway. 

The southern section caused the 1994 magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake near Los Angeles, also killing about 60 people. 

Many scientists believe it is building energy for a 1906-scale event.

The central section, by contrast, appears harmless. Only one small area, near its southern terminus, is known to produce any real quakes – and at most magnitude 6.

These lower-level quakes are thought to occur every 20 years, and because of this regularity, the team behind this study hope to look for clues that might signal a coming quake – setting up an observatory above the city of Parkfield.

This includes a two mile deep borehole, which was used to extract the cores used in this study, as well as above and below ground monitoring instruments. 

They found changes to biomarkers in sediment surrounding the fault line in this area towards the southern border of the central section, going back hundreds, thousands and millions of years, that point to changes in the fault line. 

Study co-authors Pratigya Polissar and Heather Savage, found many such altered compositions in a band of highly disturbed sedimentary rock over 10,000ft below the surface – with evidence of more than 100 earthquakes. 

They subjected the ancient rocks to a new type of chemical-analysis method that allowed them to gauge the heating of rocks during prehistoric quakes

It looks like the fault jumped by more than five feet, suggesting the largest earthquake was at least magnitude 6.9 – similar to the destructive size of the Loma Prieta and Northridge events.

However, the team say there could have been much larger quakes in this ‘quiet’ central region, that they hope to detect as they improve their detection methods. 

They say quakes along the central section may have been similar to other large San Andreas events, including the one that destroyed San Francisco in 1906.

California earthquake hazard models, used to set building codes and insurance rates, already includes the ‘remote possibility’ of a big quake in the central section. 

The new study appears to be the first to indicate that such quakes have in fact occurred here. The authors say they could have originated in the central section, or perhaps more likely, started to the north or south, and migrated through the central.

WHAT ARE THE ‘SLOW EARTHQUAKES’ DETECTED IN THE SAN ANDREAS FAULT?

Geologists have long thought that the central section of California’s famed San Andreas Fault – from San Juan Bautista southward to Parkfield, a distance of about 90 miles (145 km) – has a steady creeping movement that provides a safe release of energy.

Creep on the central San Andreas during the past several decades, so the thinking goes, has reduced the chance of a big quake that would rupture the entire fault from north to south.

New research, however, shows that the earth movements along this central section have not been smooth and steady, as previously thought.

Research by two Arizona State University geophysicists found the activity has been a sequence of small stick-and-slip movements – sometimes called ‘slow earthquakes’ – that release energy over a period of months. 

Although these slow earthquakes pass unnoticed by people, experts say they can trigger large destructive quakes in their surroundings.

Synthetic aperture radar data for 2003 to 2010 let researchers team map the average rate of movement for the central section of the San Andreas Fault (black line). Red shows ground movement toward the southeast, and blue to the northwest

One such quake was the magnitude six event that shook Parkfield in 2004. 

‘What looked like steady, continuous creep was actually made of episodes of acceleration and deceleration along the fault,’ said Mostafa Khoshmanesh, a graduate research assistant in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE)

‘Based on current time-independent models, there’s a 75 per cent chance for an earthquake of magnitude seven or larger in both northern and southern California within next 30 years.’

He is the lead author of a Nature Geoscience paper reporting on the research.

‘We found that movement on the fault began every one to two years and lasted for several months before stopping,’ said Manoochehr Shirzaei, assistant professor in SESE and co-author of the paper.

‘These episodic slow earthquakes lead to increased stress on the locked segments of the fault to the north and south of the central section,’ Shirzaei said. 

He points out that these flanking sections experienced two magnitude 7.9 earthquakes, in 1857 in Fort Tejon and 1906 in San Francisco.

The scientists also suggest a mechanism that might cause the stop-and-go movements.

The central San Andreas Fault (green) is flanked by sections (red) that are far more active. New research, however, shows that the earth movements along this central section have not been smooth and steady, as previously thought

‘Fault rocks contain a fluid phase that’s trapped in gaps between particles, called pore spaces,’ Dr Khoshmanesh said. 

‘Periodic compacting of fault materials causes a brief rise in fluid pressure, which unclamps the fault and eases the movement.’ 

The two scientists used synthetic aperture radar data from orbit for the years 2003 to 2010. 

This data let them map month-to-month changes in the ground along the central part of the San Andreas fault. 

They combined the detailed ground-movement observations with seismic records into a mathematical model. 

The model let them explore the driving mechanism of slow earthquakes and their link to big nearby quakes.

From 2003 to 2010 (bottom scale), portions of the fault at different distances from Parkfield (left scale) moved at varying rates. Red shows periods when the movement was greater than average, blue when it was less

‘We found that this part of the fault has an average movement of about three centimeters a year, a little more than an inch,’ Dr Khoshmanesh said.

‘But at times the movement stops entirely, and at other times it has moved as much as 10 centimetres a year, or about four inches.’

The picture of the central San Andreas Fault emerging from their work suggests that its stick-and-slip motion resembles on a small timescale how the other parts of the San Andreas Fault move.

They note that the new observation is significant because it uncovers a new type of fault motion and earthquake-triggering mechanism, which is not accounted for in current models of earthquake hazards used for California. 

Dr Shirzaei said: ‘Based on our observations, we believe that seismic hazard in California is something that varies over time and is probably higher than what people have thought up to now.’ 

He added that accurate estimates of this varying hazard are essential to include in operational earthquake-forecasting systems. 

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The San Andreas Fault in California is creeping slowly but may soon give the country a jolt, similar to the 1906 earthquake that killed 3,000 and leveled San Francisco.

The 800-mile-long fault runs from north to south through California and Mexico, forming the boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. The two plates grind against each other along the fault, producing seismic events, moving 0.79 to 1.38 inches per year in a process called continental drift.

The San Andreas Fault is made up of three sections, each shifting independently past each other like two hands being rubbed together. At the northernmost and southernmost ends, the massive continental plates are usually locked together. But as stress increases along the boundaries, the plates may eventually slip violently against each other, causing earthquakes.

At the central section of the fault, the two plates slip past each other at a relatively peaceful rate of just over an inch per year, thus avoiding earthquakes for the most part. This stress avoidance is called aseismic creep.

The map above depicts the San Andreas fault sinking along the California coast and then going inland at San Francisco, which was devastated by an earthquake in 1906. The fault continues to Mexico. The “creeping” central section, subject of a new study, is in yellow. Rock samples from almost 2 miles down were taken at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, or SAFOD, marked by the red star. (Adapted from Coffey et al., Geology, 2022)

Rocks from nearly two miles below the Earth’s surface, however, reveal that the supposedly peaceful central section has seen violent earthquakes, some of which have been fairly recent.

In a study published in the journal Geology, chemical analysis of the rocks was used to gauge the heating of rocks, revealing evidence of quakes.

“This means we can get larger earthquakes on the central section than we thought,” said lead author Genevieve Coffey, who conducted the research as a graduate student at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We should be aware that there is this potential — that it is not always just continuous creep.”

History has recorded devastating tremors along the San Andreas Fault. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake registered 7.9 on the Richter scale along the northern section. In 1989, the Loma Prieta quake killed more than 60. The southern section saw the 1994 Northridge quake near Los Angeles, causing another 60 deaths. Stresses are building there for a quake of the same magnitude as the 1906 quake.

Ruins of the city after the earthquake and fire of 1906 in San Francisco, California. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

However, the fault’s central section seems harmless, except for a small area in the south that produces some quakes. Events of a magnitude of 6 take place there about every 20 years. Near Parkfield, California, seismologists drilled a borehole about two miles down to retrieve rock samples, while monitoring seismic activity on the surface and deep within the Earth.

When the plates slip, rocks along the fault line spike in temperature by hundreds of degrees above that of the surrounding rocks, altering organic compounds in sedimentary rock formations along the fault path. Using these so-called biomarkers, scientists used the altered composition of rock to map ancient earthquakes. By calculating the degree of heating, the distance of slippage can be estimated and thus the magnitude of those quakes.

The samples they brought up from the borehole indicated more than 100 tremors have taken place and that the San Andreas Fault jumped about 5 feet each time, representing quakes measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale, roughly equal to the Loma Prieta and Northridge quakes.

But many of the quakes may well have been larger than recent strong tremors. Researchers say quakes along the central section of the San Andreas Fault may have been similar to the devastating 1906 quake.

California’s current hazard model for insurance rates and building codes includes a large central section quake as a remote possibility. However, the new study seems to provide evidence, apart from controversial mathematical models, that large quakes have indeed happened in the central area.

Above is an enlarged microscope photo of sedimentary rock that was structurally altered during an earthquake. The slip layer (green portion) was heated during fault movement. The actual field of view is only about a millimeter across. (Kelly Bradbury/Utah State University)

Coffey said dating the quakes remains an inexact science. By gauging the ratio of argon gas to radioactive potassium in rocks, scientists can estimate the rocks’ age: the higher the amount of argon is, the older the rock is — but not always.

The sedimentary rock they analyzed was formed tens of millions of years ago and comes from the ancient Pacific basin that was subducted or pushed beneath the North American plate. This means that the rocks along the slip zones appear to be as young as 3.2 million years as an upper age limit for the most recent quakes, said Coffey. But some may have occurred a few hundred or a few thousand years ago, she said.

The group is refining the age interpretations because they don’t know how much argon was driven out of the rock and thus how far the geological clock has been reset.

“Ultimately, our work points to the potential for higher-magnitude earthquakes in central California and highlights the importance of including the central [San Andreas Fault] and other creeping faults in seismic hazard analysis,” the authors wrote.

Morgan Page, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey, said the “Big One” — a calamitous earthquake expected by Californians — might start at the southern end of the San Andreas, tear through the creeping center and wind up in the northern section.

“People should not be alarmed,” said co-author Stephen Cox, adding that California’s building codes have improved over the years. “Seismic events are inevitable. Work like this helps us figure out what is the biggest possible event and helps everyone prepare.”

Edited by Siân Speakman and Kristen Butler

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