Central Chillers Review

Industrial, Testing, and Engineering Equipment

Central Chillers Review

Central Chillers are used to provide a cooling fluid and heat removal to an entire facility by providing multiple service use points. Central chiller systems offer several disadvantages and advantages for industrial users. Building-wide chiller systems must include high level of monitoring and control capabilities to ensure thermal exchange is optmal for multiple system applications. Advantages include lower costs of installation and maintenance as opposed to multiple dedicated chillers systems.

Central Chillers are available under 10 to over 1000 tons and with operating ranges from as low as -30°F to +65°F or more. Central chillers are typically built manage any industrial process cooling application from chemical processing, injection molding to metal finishing.

Application pecifications considered for central chillers include:

• Power source and requirments
• Chiller cooling capacity
• Evaporator capacity
• Condenser capacity
• Motor fan type and capacity
• Chiller IP rating
• Internal piping materials and piping requirements
• Type and number of compressors
• Number of refridgerant circuits
• Chiller coolant requirements
• COP (the ratio between the cooling capacity in KW to the energy consumed by the whole chiller in KW) (chiller efficiency).
• Control panel features
• Process pump specifications
• Motor IP rating and pump rating
• Control panel features: local control panel, remote control panel, fault indicators, temperature indicators, and pressure indicators
• Emergency alarms