AIR CONDITIONING
Digital Analyzer Ensures Military Techs Are 'on the Same Sheet of Music'
Not long ago, Warren Brader brought his 25 years of experience in HVAC service and maintenance to a major military contractor. His responsibility: maintaining the HVAC equipment at military bases around the world....
Cooling-Tower Design for Critical Applications
Several factors need to be addressed prior to determining the appropriate cooling-tower system for a facility with critical demands. Locations, such as data centers, medical centers, airports, and electronic-chip manufacturers, require special considerations in addition to the requirements of an average cooling-tower system....
Central-Chiller-Plant Modeling
This article will present an alternative central-chiller-plant model, one that is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics and can be executed with a laptop computer. The model will be demonstrated based on an assumed chiller plant operating at design weather conditions in Salt Lake City. ...
Portable Cooling: Equipment and Applications
It's summer, a time when overworked HVAC systems become prone to failure and portable air conditioners are pressed into emergency service. But portable air conditioners are not just for use in hot weather. They can provide solutions to a range of heat-related and comfort challenges year-round. This article will review what facility owners and managers need to know about portable cooling equipment for the summer season and beyond....
Taking a 'Belt and Suspenders' Approach to Cooling
In the world of facility management, no one can afford to be caught unprepared in the event of an emergency. Yet the uncertainty of today’s economy is forcing many facility managers to tempt fate. Organizations of all sizes are under increasing pressure to cut capital expenses and focus on revenue-generating core competencies. As a result, substantial facility investments are being put on hold, with limited or aging equipment forced to operate for as long as possible in what commonly is referred to as “run-to-fail” mode. For facility managers in such predicaments, there is the cooling contingency plan, an affordable, flexible, and reliable way to prepare for the unexpected. ...
Large-Campus District Cooling
Looking to meet its growing cooling needs using less power, UT recently embarked on a district-cooling-optimization project that has seen gas-use quantities return to 1970s levels....
New Purge System Removes Excess Oil
At its plant in Charleston, S.C., the Bosch Group, global supplier of automotive, industrial, and building technology, was having trouble maintaining sufficiently low temperatures in each of seven 1,000- and 1,250-ton chillers. One chiller in particular was underperforming. ...
Improving Efficiency With Variable-Primary Flow
In 2007, a partnership was formed by the city of Lansing, Mich.; the state of Michigan; Accident Fund Insurance Co. of America and its parent company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan; developer and construction manager The Christman Co.; Lansing Economic Development Corp.; and Lansing Board of Water & Light (LBWL) to renovate the decommissioned Ottawa Street Power Station in Lansing into Accident Fund’s new world headquarters. The partnership required LBWL to construct a separate plant to provide chilled water, which previously was supplied by equipment in the Ottawa Street Power Station’s basement....
Simplifying the Selection of Rooftop Units
An engineer is calculating the cooling load for each room to be served by a new rooftop unit. Solar and transmission heat gains through the windows, walls,...
An Update on the EPA's Final Ruling on R-22
It is no secret that R-22 refrigerant is going away. What members of the refrigeration and air-conditioning industry may not be aware of is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) hydrochlorofluorocarbon- (HCFC-) allocation final rule, signed Dec. 7, 2009, further reduced R-22 supply by 150 million lb....
New High School's Hybrid HVAC System Features Single-Pipe Hydronic System
Built in 1938, Waterloo High School in Waterloo, Ill., part of Waterloo Community Unit School District No. 5, had become seriously overcrowded. In 2006,...
Optimizing Dedicated Outdoor-Air Systems
Though vital to maintaining good indoor-air quality, outdoor air can be expensive to temper and, if not conditioned properly, cause humidity problems...
Keeping Cool
Three facilities a warehouse, forge plant, and paint-preparation area had complaints about excessive heat in working areas. I recommended that air be...
Infectious-Diseases Doc Available From ASHRAE
As health and school officials deal with a second wave of the H1N1 virus (swine flu), new information on health consequences of exposure to airborne infectious diseases and implications for the design, installation, and operation of HVACR systems is available from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)....
Turnkey Capabilities Keep Guests Comfortable, Construction Going
During the summer of 2005, The General Theological Seminary began renovating three of its buildings in New York's historic Chelsea neighborhood to house...
Rethinking Central Utility Plants
Times have changed and so have the buildings in which we live, work, and teach. They have become more energy-efficient because of better facades and more sophisticated HVAC, electrical, and automation systems. But what about the central plants that produce the heating and cooling delivered to these buildings? How have they evolved over the years? Are they serving us in an efficient, sustainable manner? ...
Behind the Lines of Temperature Wars
A report examining the most common thermal complaints made by office workers and the variety of ways facility professionals respond to them is available for free download. ...
System Differences
This article uses the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers variable-air-volume (VAV) system as an example. This is...
Networked Thermostats Help Church Realize Significant Energy Savings
Located in Cary, N.C., Colonial Baptist Church consists of five multipurpose buildings (Figure 1) that employed a combination of standard and programmable...
With Air-Intake Filters, Automaker Keeps Cooling Tower Free of Debris
At a major automotive assembly facility, cottonwood seed, insects, and other debris were getting drawn into the cooling tower, building up in the fill...
CFD Aids School Districts' Utilization of Thermal Displacement Ventilation
School districts in Southern California are looking to increase the number of their schools that have air conditioning in an attempt to improve learning...
Cooling Health-Care Technology
The one constant about technology is that it always is changing. Two major categories of technology in health-care facilities are information-technology (IT) and procedure rooms. This article will discuss the cooling of IT facilities and highlight some of the differences between IT facilities and procedure rooms. ...
Converting From Primary/Secondary to All-Variable Flow
The control of all-variable-flow chilled-water systems is thought to be so complicated and, thus, difficult for operators to understand that many engineers and designers resist converting their primary/secondary systems, even though the return on investment of such a conversion is measured in weeks, rather than years, with chilled-water-plant energy consumption reduced by at least 10 percent and often by 20 percent or more. ...
Finding the Right Equipment
I designed an HVAC system for a large electronics store in midtown Manhattan, a fast-track construction project that was supposed to be completed during...
Solving Problems Off the Clock
When I checked into my room in one of the largest hotels in Las Vegas, the room was too warm, but the vertical chilled-water fan-coil unit was running...
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