Air Management in Hydronic Piping Loops

Air Management in Hot and Chilled Water Piping Loops
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.

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Generators Serving Small Data Center | Critical Facilities

Generators Serving Small Data Center | Critical FacilitiesGenerators Serving Small Data Center | Critical Facilities - These generators serve a small data center giving the data center backup emergency power in the event of a loss of utility. Most data centers have redundant power from the utility and backup generators. In other words, the utility will provide two sources of utility power from two different power stations or sub-stations so if one source station loses power for whatever reason the system automatically transfers to the backup source of power or the other power or substation. (more…)

Portable Load Bank for UPS Testing | Commissioning

Portable Load Bank for UPS TestingPortable Load Bank for UPS Testing | Commissioning - This is a portable load bank used for testing small UPS (Universal Power Supply) systems and for other electrical loads. New UPS systems are tested to ensure they operate properly and can hold the designed load whenever a power failure occurs.

It is a way to test the UPS system without hooking up an actual load to the system with the actual load being the computer systems the UPS will power in the event of a power failure.

This testing ensures the UPS equipment will functionally operate after the intended load is hooked up to the UPS system. Included in the test is a time factor on how long the batteries will power the load without utility or a backup generator. On specific construction projects, whether it is new construction or retrofit projects, data centers and telecom facilities go through the commissioning process.

The commissioning process tests all electrical and mechanical devices under normal operation and under full load conditions. Other scenarios are tested such as equipment failure, infrastructure failures such as piping or utility loss, and plans implemented for operational procedures in case these scenarios occur.  (more…)

Chilled Water Storage Tank | Critical Facilities

Chilled Water Storage TankChilled Water Storage Tank | Critical Facilities - Data centers use redundant systems for back-ups in case of an emergency. An HVAC chilled water storage tank adds an extra layer of redundancy to the process so if the chilled water plants crash the chilled water storage tank or tanks will provide a small cushion of time to allow the operating engineers time to straighten things out or in a worst-case scenario allow time for the servers in the data center to be transferred to another data center and shut down. (more…)