What is Terminal HVAC zoning?
Terminal HVAC zoning divides an airport terminal into areas whose heating, cooling and ventilation are controlled separately, matched to how each area fills and empties with the flight schedule.
How terminal zones are drawn
Zones usually follow function: ticketing, security checkpoints, holdrooms at each gate, concourses, concessions, baggage claim and back-of-house offices. A holdroom can go from empty to full within an hour of a departure, and glazed concourses pick up solar gain that moves across the day. Terminal operators, energy teams and HVAC designers use zoning so each area is conditioned for its own use instead of for the busiest case.
Planning guidance and fault data
The federal reference is FAA Advisory Circular 150/5360-13A, Airport Terminal Planning, issued 13 July 2018, which consolidated two earlier circulars without adding new requirements. Zoning saves energy only when the equipment behind it works. A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study of more than 60,000 pieces of HVAC equipment found 40 percent of air handlers and 30 percent of terminal units reporting a fault on a given day, and DOE's Smart Energy Analytics Campaign measured median savings of 9 percent from fault detection and diagnostics.
Holdroom data in Aqueduct
aQ AirSafe measures CO2, temperature and humidity per zone and reports CO2 exposure in zone-hours against occupancy from sensors or a schedule. Where control is enabled, with owner approval, Smart Controls drives AHUs and VAV boxes over BACnet or Modbus so a holdroom follows its departure bank, and command history shows whether each command executed.