Is your air conditioning system giving you 100% output?

 

If yes, then you must be among 99% utility or Maintenance Managers who understand that Preventive Chiller maintenance – everything from keeping a daily record of the chiller output and using most innovative maintenance solutions will yield optimum efficiency of the chillers and great energy savings in short run.

Additionally, incorporating an automatic tube cleaning system can further enhance the performance and longevity of your chillers, ensuring they operate at peak efficiency.

Chillers are the single largest individual user of electricity in commercial and institutional HVAC facilities.

The performance of heat exchangers usually deteriorates with time because of the accumulation of deposits, biological growth, corrosion on heat transfer surfaces. It is estimated that a build-up of a 0.6 mm thick layer of fouling on the condenser water tubes will reduce chiller efficiency by minimum 20%.

As fouling builds up in a condenser, the condensing temperature and subsequent power consumption increases while the unit cooling capacity decreases. At some point in the operating cycle, the increased cost of power will be offset by the cost of cleaning. Implementing an automatic tube cleaning system can help mitigate these issues by continuously maintaining the cleanliness of the tubes, thereby improving efficiency and reducing operational costs.

To prevent this, maintenance and engineering managers have three primary options to improving chiller performance: replacement, control strategies, and maintenance.

Many general maintenance techniques exist today for fouling mitigation of heat exchangers. Chemical inhibitors are commonly introduced to the water loop to reduce and/or mitigate the deposition rates of selected fouling problems. However chemical dozing can be costly and become an expense regular expense that is incurred every time tubes need cleaning. And this remains not-so- sought-after options for Organizations who are environmentally conscious.

The most common mechanical method is scrubbing propelled through the heat exchanger tubes to remove deposits however this method required shutdown and loss of production hours.

Most modern technology used today for round-the-clock cleaning of Chiller tubes is Automatic Tube Cleaning System, this automatic method of cleaning heat exchanger tubes occurs while the equipment remains in operation and in full production. This is an online method that infuses some slightly oversized elastomer balls periodically to the Condenser tubes and keeps the tubes free of fouling 24×7. A strainer or ball collector is installed at the water piping exiting the condenser that collects the balls for re-circulation in the system. There is absolutely no need for system shutdown for descaling and as a result, Chiller operates at top performance and efficiency.