heating / cooling process

[stap-m]

Description of the issue

In #1570 and #1572 the question is raised how to depict the temperature increase of a material.
I suggest to create processes heating and cooling to describe that.

Ideas of solution

• heating is a heat generation process in which the thermal energy of a material entity is raised, e.g. by raising the temperature level or by phase transition.
• cooling is a heat generation process in which the thermal energy of a material entity is decreased, e.g. by lowering the temperature level or by phase transition.

Workflow checklist

• I discussed the issue with someone else than me before working on a solution
• I already read the latest version of the workflow for this repository
• The goal of this ontology is clear to me

I am aware that

• every entry in the ontology should have a definition
• classes should arise from concepts rather than from words

[l-emele]

heat pump (technology) an the others are more tricky: 'is about' some ('electric heat pump' and 'participates in' some 'heat transfer')

While in "normal" heat transfers, the thermal energy flows from the higher to the lower temperature. In contrast, in heat transfers involving heat pumps the thermal energy flows from lower to higher temperatures. Maybe we need additional subclasses of heat transfer with normal versus reversed heat flow.

Originally posted by @l-emele in #1572 (comment)

[stap-m]

heat pump (technology) an the others are more tricky: 'is about' some ('electric heat pump' and 'participates in' some 'heat transfer')

While in "normal" heat transfers, the thermal energy flows from the higher to the lower temperature. In contrast, in heat transfers involving heat pumps the thermal energy flows from lower to higher temperatures. Maybe we need additional subclasses of heat transfer with normal versus reversed heat flow.

Originally posted by @l-emele in #1572 (comment)

Do you propose these subclasses in addition to heating/cooling?

[stap-m]

If we added increase and decrease in #1407, heating could be something like:
heating EquivalentTo: increase and ('has energy input' some 'thermal energy') and ('has energy output' some 'thermal energy') and cooling resp.
FYI @nelekoehler

[l-emele]

• cooling is a heat generation process in which the thermal energy of a material entity is decreased, e.g. by lowering the temperature level or by phase transition.

Cooling is always an energy transfer, where the amount of thermal energy that is decreased from material entity A is transferred to material entity B in which the thermal energy increases.

[l-emele]

I just revived the related issue on heating and cooling degree days #1397.

Heating and cooling does not necessarily increase/decrease the thermal energy of the target. Heating resp. cooling can also simply mean to keep the target temperature constant and thus compensating other energy flows:

• In winter the target of the heating process might be to keep the temperature in a house at a constant temperature (e.g. 20° C) independently from the outside temperature (which might be +5° C or -18° C). So the heating process compensates for the thermal energy losses through the wall, windows etc. If that is achieved, the heating power equals the power of the energy losses.
• For cooling (e.g. from an air conditioning) a house it is basically the same, only the directions of the energy flows are opposed.

I think we should discuss this at a meeting to find a proper solution.