Fluid Mechanics, HVAC & Refrigeration · Mixing airstreams
Two streams in, one condition out
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Two streams in, one condition out

Every air handler starts with a mixing box: outdoor air for ventilation, return air from the space, and one blend leaving for the coil. What comes out is a mass-weighted average of what went in.

Tm=fToa+(1f)TraT_m = f\,T_{oa} + (1 - f)\,T_{ra}T-m equals f T-o-a plus one minus f, T-r-a. TmT_m is the mixed-air temperature, ToaT_{oa} the outdoor air and TraT_{ra} the return air, all in °C. ff is the outdoor-air fraction — the share of the total mass that came from outside, a bare number between 0 and 1 (a damper at 25 % is f=0.25f = 0.25). The subscripts are the whole convention, so fix them once: oa is outdoor, ra is return, m is the mixture, and ff is always the OUTDOOR share, never the return's.

The same weighting runs the moisture: Wm=fWoa+(1f)WraW_m = f\,W_{oa} + (1 - f)\,W_{ra}. Two quantities that mix by mass — temperature and humidity ratio — and both use the identical fractions. Read the relation backwards and it becomes a commissioning tool: f=TmTraToaTraf = \dfrac{T_m - T_{ra}}{T_{oa} - T_{ra}}, which is how a technician catches a damper actuator that is lying about its position.

The sanity rail: the mixture always lands BETWEEN the two streams and nearer the bigger one. A blend outside that range means the fractions went onto the wrong streams.

One more ratio, because it appears on charts you did not draw. The degree of saturation is μ=WWs\mu = \dfrac{W}{W_s}mu equals W over W-s, with μ\mu the Greek letter mu, said “mew”. WW is the humidity ratio present and WsW_s the humidity ratio saturated air would have at the SAME temperature and pressure; the units cancel and μ\mu is a proportion. It is not the relative humidity, though it is always close: φ\varphi is a ratio of PRESSURES and μ\mu is a ratio of MASSES, and μ\mu is always the slightly smaller of the two. At 24 °C and 50 % RH, μ\mu is about 49.3 %. Older charts — and some European ones still — draw their curved lines as percentage saturation, which is μ\mu. The lines look identical. Read the legend.