TopChiller can design and manufacturer all type of chillers for you

Chiller Unit-An Ultimate Buying Guide by TopChiller.

A Chiller Unit uses a Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system. Air handling unit is connected to a Chiller Unit that uses air to ventilate your application.

The Chiller Unit produces chilled water and pumps it to the air handling unit known as AHU.

Here are complete, well-optimized, and well research guidelines for our readers in the form of clear answers to your questions.

Different manufacturers provide you a guide to Chiller Units on buying their product but before purchasing the Chiller Unit.

Now you must be very curious to know about all the information about a Chiller Unit.

This all-inclusive guide about a Chiller Unit will help you regarding each aspect of a Chiller Unit.

When you will buy or operate your Chiller Unit with a proper way and guide for your application. Then surely it will give 100% efficient results.

Chiller Unit Complete Guide

What is a Chiller Unit?

Nowadays, many industries and factories have installed a wide variety of Chiller Units.

While Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems; are responsible for maintaining and regulating the comfort levels of buildings and offices, a Chiller Unit act as a centralized cooling source that you can operate for cooling for a building or several buildings.

The Chiller Unit transfers heat from an internal environment to an external environment.

This heat-transfer Chiller Unit depends on the physical state of a refrigerant. The refrigerant circulates through the chiller system.

A Chiller Unit uses two mediums: Air and water/liquids.

A Chiller Unit provides a cooling effect with the help of water.

The water absorbs heat from the building’s spaces. It removes the heat from water by a refrigeration cycle.

A refrigeration cycle in a Chiller Unit uses evaporators to remove heat.

The whole process is performed by a compressor, which takes a lot of energy from the Chiller Unit. The condenser of a Chiller Unit transfers the heat to condenser water or outside the system.

A Chiller Unit has a water loop that uses pipes and pumps, for the flow of chilled water around the application.

Some of the Chiller Units have simple configuration methods and some are very complex.

Chiller Unit Designed by TopChiller

What are the Working Principles of the Chiller Unit?

A Chiller Unit works on the basic principle of vapor compression or vapor absorption.

A Chiller Unit supplies a nonstop flow of chilled water to the cold side of the water system then that coolant is pumped throughout the process.

Then it extracts the heat from one area of the application and transfers it back to the Chiller Unit.

A Chiller Unit uses a mechanical refrigeration system. The mechanical refrigeration system makes a connection with a process water system.

It is connected to the process water system through a device known as an evaporator.

A refrigerant circulates through the different components of a Chiller Unit. It includes a condenser, compressor, evaporator, and expansion device.

These components use a thermodynamic process. The evaporator of a Chiller Unit is responsible for the heat exchange process.

During the heat exchange process, the refrigerant evaporates from a low-pressure liquid to a vapor form, while the temperature decreases.

That refrigerant flows through a compressor. It removes the refrigerant and makes sure about the low pressure in the evaporator.

It is because the low pressure in the evaporator is used to absorb the heat efficiently.

The compressor of a Chiller Unit gives rise to the pressure in the outgoing vapor of refrigerant and makes sure about the high pressure to release heat at the correct rate.

The refrigerant recycles into a liquid state at the condenser.

The remaining heat is generated when the refrigerant changes from vapor to liquid and is released into the other cooling medium like air or water.

In short, a Chiller Unit transfers the heat from an internal environmental system to the external atmosphere.

The heat transfer process of a Chiller Unit depends upon the physical space of a refrigerant. Which circulates throughout the Chiller Unit.

What are the Main Features of the Chiller Unit?

The followings are the features of a Chiller Unit:

• Low Ambient Lock-out:

It prevents the Chiller Unit from operating below a pre-adjusted external ambient temperature.

• Failure Recovery Management:

It automatically starts up the next chiller in the sequence if one fails to work.

• Advanced System Control:

It ensures only the required components of a Chiller Unit are operating to meet a system load.

• Programmed Maintenance:

It advises when the maintenance is due, based on elapsed time or run time of a Chiller Unit.

• Remote Operation:

It provides browser and application support for both tablets and mobile phones for a Chiller Unit.

• Remote Alarming:

This feature of a Chiller Unit generates customizable alarms and delivers notifications via email.

• Data Trending:

It displays key trends graphically for immediate interpretation and it can generate dashboards for the Chiller Unit.

• Hydraulic Optimization:

It optimizes the pump pressure, chiller tower operation, and free cooling and heat recovery controls of a Chiller Unit.

• Scalability:

The solution is completely scalable to meet the demands of the most complex installation for a Chiller Unit.

What are the Main Components of a Chiller Unit?

There are different types of Chiller Units found in buildings of different sizes. All Chiller Units have essentially the same main components.

These components are:

• Compressor unit
• Condenser unit
• Expansion valve
• Evaporator unit
• Power unit
• Controls panel
• Water boxes

1. Compressor Unit:

This unit is highly responsible for pressure control activities. The compressor unit is a prime mover; it moves the refrigerant around the system.

It is located between the evaporator and condenser. There are different types of condensers for different Chiller Units.

Some of its types are the centrifugal compressor, screw compressor, scroll compressor, and reciprocating compressor.

Each type of compressor unit has different features. The compressor unit is partially insulated. It has an electric motor, which is attached to some driving force.

2. Condenser Unit:

The condenser unit is used to remove heat from the refrigerator in the evaporator. It is located between the expansion valve and condenser.

There are two main types of condensers.

Air-cooled condenser unit

Water-cooled condenser unit

Water-cooled condensers continuously remove heat from the hot refrigerant and cycle.

It moves the refrigerator between the cooling tower and the condenser.

The hot refrigerant transfers its heat into the water, which is then transported to the cooling tower.

The refrigerant and water in the cycle don’t mix because they are kept in separate pipe valves. The water flows in the pipe and the refrigerant direct flows outside the pipe.

While the air-cooled condenser unit works slightly differently. Because they don’t use a technique of cooling tower instead they use to blow air across the pipes of the condenser and the refrigerant flows inside the tube.

3. Expansion Valve:

The expansion valve in a Chiller Unit is used to scatter the refrigerant. It is used to reduce pressure and increase the volume of refrigerant.

In this way, unwanted heat is sent to the evaporator unit. The expansion valve is located between the evaporator unit and the condenser unit.

There are different types of expansion valves but the most well-known are thermal expansion valves, electronic expansion valves, and pilot-operated thermal expansion valves.

4. Evaporator Unit:

The purpose of the evaporator unit is to obtain all the unwanted heat from the application. It moves it into the refrigerant.

The refrigerant transfers that heat to the cooling tower when the refrigerant extracts the heat the water cools down.

This chilled water is used for air conditioning when pumped around the application. The Evaporator unit can be on an air-cooled Chiller Unit or a water-cooled Chiller Unit.

The evaporator is located between the compressor unit and the expansion valve.

5. Power unit:

The power unit is responsible for controlling the flow of electricity to the Chiller Unit. It usually includes components like speed controllers, circuit breakers, starters, and power monitoring devices.

You can either adjust it directly to the Chiller Unit. You can fix it separately somewhere in the plant room with the help of power cables.

6. Controls:

The control unit is used to inspect the monitor different functions of the Chiller Unit. It keeps checking on its performance and making adjustments.

This unit is built with advanced technology. When a Chiller Unit notices any fault or issue in the working, it safely shut down the whole unit to prevent any damage.

In this way, it prevents the complete unit from being damaged. It also has BMS connections,

Used for monitoring and remote controlling of a Chiller Unit for different applications.

7. Water boxes:

Water boxes are used to control the direct flow of water from the entrance and exit. They may have one or two entrance and exit holes.

You can mount them to the evaporator and also the condensers of water-cooled Chiller Units.

Water boxes of Chiller Units may be open-ended or maybe closed.

Main Components of a Chiller Unit

What are the Advantages of the Chiller Unit?

A Chiller Unit has many advantages for different applications but some of its matchless advantages are given below:

• Reliable for Industrial Environment:

A Chiller Unit is built with heavy-duty refrigerant, electrical, and coolant components. It can withstand the harsh and complex reality of the industrial environment. It can work for a long, long time.

• Improved sustainability:

It has gained intelligence from the system that provides ways to manage environmental conditions.

• Apart from a Converted Air Conditioner:

The industrial Chiller Unit is designed by well-experienced engineers who know how the industry works. We cannot put a home air conditioner on casters and cannot say it is a “mold chiller”.

• Demonstrated performance:

Detailed dashboards allow accurate monitoring of the performance of a Chiller Unit and its proactive maintenance.

• Enough Capacity:

There are many Chiller Units ready to fit into your application. But, only some of them have enough capacity to manage the operations for your application.

• Energy savers:

A Chiller Unit has a facility of reduced energy and operating costs to 20%.

• Easy performance management:

Its features such as Data Trending can be tracked and repeated to manage multiple operations to facilitate the user.

Energy Saving Chiller Unit

How to Determine the Capacity of a Chiller Unit?

The capacity of a Chiller Unit depends on the total work done by it. The capacity of a Chiller Unit is associated with its ability to remove heat.

You can measure the cooling capacity of the system in the SI unit watt (W).

It can also be defined in the British thermal units per hour (BTU/hr) or tons of refrigeration (RT).

The cooling capacity of a Chiller Unit depends upon the temperature adjustments.

If you will set the temperature lower, the cooling capacity of a Chiller Unit decreases. If you set the temperature high the cooling capacity will increase.

The refrigerant temperature and the liquid temperature of the Chiller Unit are a bit different.

Due to this difference, it is slightly less heat transfer.

Here is the proper formula to measure the capacity of your Chiller Unit

The capacity of a Chiller Unit depends on the following parameters of a Chiller Unit:

1) Total Mass flow rate of the medium

2) The temperature difference created by it.

3) The specific heat capacity of the liquid that you want to be cooled.

The complete formula is:

Capacity= m*Cp*∆T

Or if you want to convert it into tons of refrigeration, then here it is:

TR= (capacity/ 3.5) TR, The provided capacity is in KW.

Now, you can easily calculate the capacity of a Chiller Unit.

Chiller Unit Capacity Formula

What are the Industrial Applications of the Chiller Unit?

A Chiller Unit can widely be used in large-scale industrial applications. It can be used to control the cooling of factory machinery, mechanisms, and cooling of products.

Some of the industrial applications Chiller Units appended below:

• Plastics, such as injection molding industries (using a Chiller Unit to cool down the plastics)
• Food and beverage industries (Using a Chiller Unit to cool down the drinks, vines, ice-creams and other products that need continuous cooling)
• Pharmaceutical and chemicals industries (Using a Chiller Unit to maintain the chemical properties of medicines, vaccines, and chemical substances by cooling)
• Commercial printing industries (Using a Chiller Unit to cool down the printed patterns for commercial products)
• Transportation manufacturing industries (Using a Chiller Unit to maintain the features of transportation components by cooling method)
• Metal finishing industries (it uses a Chiller Unit to keep the state and shape of metal equipment)
• Composite manufacturing industries (Uses a Chiller Unit in fabrication processes to maintain cooling)
• Laser cutting industries (Uses a Chiller Unit to cool down the material when cut by extremely hot radiations of laser)
• Machine tooling and die-cutting industries (Also uses to maintain the shape and other features of machine tools)
• Semi-conductor manufacturing industries (Uses a Chiller Unit during the manufacturing of semiconductor material)

Industrial Application of the Chiller Unit

How to Choose the Right Chiller Unit for your Application?

For different applications, there are different types of Chiller Units to meet the requirements of your application.

You must know about some points when you are going to choose or buy a Chiller Unit.

Using the following guidelines will help you in purchasing the best Chiller Unit for your application.

• What type of condenser do you want?
• Do you want an air-cooled Chiller Unit or a water-cooled Chiller Unit?
• If you want an air-cooled Chiller Unit for your application, make sure about the location serviceability, obstructions, and low ambient air temperatures.
• If water-cooled, you need to make sure about the source of cooling, highest and lowest temperatures of condenser, and water regulating valves.
• What are your requirements for a temperature controller for your application?

If you need accurate temperature control for your application, you may go for a two-loop process to maintain specific heat.

• What voltages do you have for your new Chiller Unit?

Inspect your electrical power supply, if it is compactable with the Chiller Unit you want for your application.

• What are the estimated inlet/outlet temperatures of your Chiller Unit?

In case you want a high temperature, you must have a buffer tank for the protection of the compressor.

• Do you want a freeze protection system in your Chiller Unit?
• What is the percentage of coolant you require for your application?
• What type of freeze protection do you require for your application?
• Does your application require a pump or not?
• Do you want your process to be constant or on/off?
• Does your application require a process pump?
• What would be the expected flow rate of your Chiller Unit?
• Can a simple evaporator handle your required flow rate, fluid viscosity?
• Wither the internal components can adjust the required flow rate?

How to Size Chiller Unit for your Application?

You can size a Chiller Unit for your application by using a simple formula.

This formula will help you to find out the accurate size of the Chiller Unit for your application.

Do you know the accurate size of your Chiller Unit? If yes, then it will be easy for you to install your Chiller Unit.

This formula is given in the following five steps:

Step 1:

First of all, calculate the temperature Differential (? T°F)? T°F = Inlet Temperature (°F) of(Air/Water) – Required Outlet Temperature of ( Air/Water).

Step 2:

Then, Calculate BTU/hr. BTU/hr. = Gallons per hr x 8.33 x? T°F

Step 3:

Now Calculate tons of cooling capacity Tons = BTU/hr. ÷ 12,000

Step 4:

Then, Oversize the Chiller Unit by 20% Ideal Size in Tons = Tons x 1.2

Hence, you will have the ideal size of your Chiller Unit for your application.

How to Install Chiller Unit?

When it comes to installing a Chiller Unit, you need to take guidelines properly.

Here is a complete guideline about how you will install your Chiller Unit.

But before the installation process, you need to arrange some essential equipment given below:

• Ladders
• Threading Machine
• Lifting Equipment/Cranes
• Toolbox
• Welding machine
• Pipe Cutter
• Grinding machine
• Water level marker
• Pressure Gauge
• Mobile Scaffolds

Some general requirements for the installation of a Chiller Unit are given below:

• To install a Chiller Unit ensure construction and basic testing works should be carried out under the observation of qualified mechanical engineers and checked and approved MEP Subcontractor Construction Manager, along with the QC engineer.
• Chiller Units were dispatched from a factory in the well-assembled package with factory pipes, wires, and quality certifications. All the holes in a Chiller Unit are covered to avoid contamination during handling and shipping.
• Take special care during handling. You need to hire suitable types of vehicles while transporting the control unit. And ensure if they are safe against the weather and mechanical damage.
• After moving the Chiller Unit to the correct location. You need to fulfill all the requirements of installation on the factory manual composed by the manufacturer.
• The person who is installing the Chiller Unit and working with fluid, cement, or any other form of chemical compounds should wear protective gloves.
• During the installation don’t forget to display a warning signboard. And make barriers around the area of a Chiller Unit.
• Only experts and trained mechanical engineers should perform all the steps of the installation method. And they should also ensure the testing after installation.
• In this way, you will be able to install your Chiller Unit at best for your application.

Chiller Unit Installation

How to Maintain Chiller Unit?

After the installation of your Chiller Unit, you will start operating it. But don’t forget this step, it is necessary to maintain your Chiller Unit properly.

Because when you maintain your Chiller Unit properly, you will get its output at peak. It will also save your energy and maintenance costs.

Here are a few tips for you to keep maintaining your Chiller Unit.

• Keep a daily log of your Chiller Unit. It is the first step for the maintenance of your Chiller Unit to run it efficiently.

The log will help you to maintain a previous history of the performance of your Chiller Unit.

It includes information about fluid levels, pressures, flow rates, temperatures and remote controlling, etc.

It will help you to figure out the maintenance needs before it turns into a problem.

• Keep the tubes of the Chiller Unit cleaned; this will help you for efficient heat transfer.

The cleaning of tubes regularly will keep your Chiller Unit safe from blockage problems.

• Keep the temperature of the condenser water with this entering into the condenser lower. This will keep your Chiller Unit from air handler deficiencies.

This will also improve the efficiency of your Chiller Unit.

• You need to maintain adequate refrigerant charges to increase the efficiency of your Chiller Unit.

It is important to use the refrigerant in a proper amount. It is a characteristic of a refrigerant that it leaks and also releases into air moisture. It will decrease the durability and efficiency of a Chiller Unit.

Keeping a low refrigerant charge will help the compressor to work harder for small cooling.

• You can also install variable speed drives to increase the efficiency of a Chiller Unit. If you operate the speed drives correctly it will help you to save a large amount of energy.

These drives will help you to start your Chiller Unit smoothly. They also play an important role during emergency power generation needs.

Chiller Unit Control System Maintenances

FAQ of Chiller Unit.

• What Type of Chiller Unit are Available?

The two main types of Chiller Units are absorption Chiller Units and vapor-compression Chiller Units.

The main difference between both types is the way how the refrigerant changes its states.

• What is Air Handling Unit (AHU)and Chiller Unit in the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) System?

An Air Handling Unit (AHU) is responsible for re-circulating the air in the Heating, Ventilation and, Air Conditioning (HVAC) System.

And a Chiller Unit works to transfer heat from the internal system external environment.

• What are the Different Types of Cooling Towers?

The different types of cooling towers in the Chiller Unit are given below:

• Crossflow cooling tower.
• Mechanical draft tower.
• Natural draft cooling tower.
• Counter-flow tower.

• Why is Glycol Used in a Chiller Unit?

When you use glycol in a Chiller Unit, it will reduce the chance of contamination and corrosion.

Glycol decreases the freezing heat of a process fluid.

• How Many Types of Chiller Units are there?

There are three main types of Chiller Units rated between 1 to 1000 tons. These types are given below.

• Air Cooled Chiller Unit.
• Water-cooled Chiller Unit.
• Evaporative condensed Chiller Unit.

• How to Calculate the Efficiency of a Chiller Unit?

You can calculate the efficiency of a Chiller Unit by using this formula. EER=Btu/hr cooling/watts consumed.

• What is the Best Efficiency of a Chiller Unit?

You can achieve the maximum efficiency from a Chiller Unit when you input 72-75% load and lowest condenser water temperature handling to the Chiller Unit.

Now you can estimate the best one.

• What is the Function Chiller Unit of an HVAC System?

The Chiller Unit is the heart of the HVAC system. The HVAC system is built to control the heating and cooling of the environment by controlling the temperature.

It also controls the humidity level by controlling the motion of air.

• How do you Calculate Kilowatts per Ton of the Chiller Unit?

You can calculate the kilowatts per ton of Chiller Unit with the help of the given formula:

• kW/ton = 12 / EER
• kW/ton = 12 / (COP x 3.412)
• COP = EER / 3.412
• COP = 12 / (kW/ton) / 3.412
• EER = 12 / (kW/ton)
• EER = COP x 3.412

If the efficiency of your Chiller Unit is rated 1 Kilowatt per ton then,

COP = 3.52 & EER = 12

• What are the 4 Main Components in a Refrigeration System of a Chiller Unit?

There are the four main components of a Chiller Unit, in a refrigeration system are given below.

• An Evaporator.
• A Compressor.
• A Condenser.
• Metering Device.

Chiller Unit Evaporator