Glycol is like antifreeze and is used in chilled water piping loops to prevent freezing. Everyone knows when the pipes freeze they also break and start leaking. Having antifreeze in a chilled water loop is important to prevent freezing. (more…)
Air Management in Hydronic Piping Loops - This is a secondary chilled water pump in a large pump room designated for pumps and piping in a data center. After a few minor tweaks and corrections, these pumps all operated flawlessly. There were very few issues with the secondary pump start-ups.
Unlike the primary pumps where cavitation was encountered on the primary chilled water pumps and the condenser water pumps for the chiller. The diagnosis for the cavitation of the primary pumps and the condenser water pumps was that the loops were not properly purged. This caused those pumps to cavitate.
The secondary pumps, pictured here, did not have that problem. Kudos to the team that purged the loops on this side of the chilled water system.
That was an initial installation issue. It was also a lesson in priming the system to ensure all the air purged from the loop. After all, cavitation in the pumps can cause damage to the pumps. Even after the initial installation purge, it is important to ensure air does not build up in the water piping loop. To do this we need a few devices to help purge the air before it becomes a problem. This will prevent nuisance problems such as hydronic air block in branch circuits of the loop. It will also prevent any damage that may be caused by pump cavitation as a result of too much air in the system.
Cooling Tower Evaporation Cools Water | HVAC Technical - Cooling towers use the process of evaporation to cool or removes heat from the condenser water that was transferred to the water in the chiller condenser barrel. The heat is absorbed in the load in this case in a data center on a data center floor. The servers and electrical equipment produce a massive amount of sensible heat.
The heat is absorbed by computer room air conditioners or computer room air handlers. These systems, computer room air handlers, and air conditioners have chilled water coils. The chilled water originates at the chiller into the primary loop. The water circulates through the primary loop and makes its way into the secondary loops. (more…)
Large Condenser Pump for a Chilled Water System - This large HVAC condenser pump serves a new chiller located in a data center. This pump pumps condenser water through the condenser chiller barrel and to cooling to reject the heat absorbed in the chillers evaporator barrel. The pump works to move the water from the chiller to the cooling and then back through the chiller again. The water is diluted with a glycol solution to prevent freezing in the wintertime when the chiller needs to run at low ambient temperatures. (more…)
Air Source Chillers provide cool water for a hydronic piping system
How Hydronics Works | HVAC Technical for Consumers - Hydronics refers to using water and chilled water, steam boilers and hot water boilers, and other methods of transferring heat using water.
A boiler or chiller is used to heat or cool the water and then the water is transferred through the hydronic piping loops to heat exchangers such as coils or baseboards where heat is transferred from the water to the air for heating and from the air to the water for cooling to provide comfort for people or a process.
Hydronics is very popular in commercial and industrial HVAC applications for heating and cooling occupants in large buildings and providing heating and cooling for equipment and machines including computers and servers. Basically in a nutshell Hydronics uses water to move heat from one place to another.
