AFE-St. Louis's November Meeting/Tour

St. Louis Chapter 26 would like to express a special Thank You to

Management - Nooney Inc for letting us use their building.

Thanks to all those members who showed their support by attending. We look forward to seeing you again at next month's meeting. To all our guests, we hope you found this event interesting. This is just one of the many benefits of belonging to our organization. We will enjoy seeing you at the next meeting. We hope that you all join the Association for Facilities Engineering.

Frank Kastl

President-AFE St. Louis (Chapter 26)

The Meeting:

Screw or Centrifugal chillers, that is the question.

This months tour was at 500 N. Broadway, where we could compare fairly new installations of Chillers by Trane Company. After Jamie educated us on the differences in application of screw and centrifugal chillers, the choice was no longer a question.

We started off meeting on the first floor for some refreshments and a slide presentation. Our host went over the differences between...

Centrifugal Chillers, primarily large tonnage [above l000 kW (300 tons)]
- Pro: low energy cost per ton of cooling produced
- Pro: small footprint
- Pro: less vibrations
- Con: drive produce high-frequency noise
- Con: partial load performance
Screw Chillers (50 - 400 tons)
- Pro: quieter, vibration-free operation
- Pro: less maintenance requirements
- Con: less efficient
- Con: high first cost

Centrifugal chillers are variable volume displacement units. Typically, an electric drive powers one or more rotating impellers that use centrifugal force to compress the refrigerant vapor. The cooling capacity is controlled through the use of inlet vanes on the impellers that restrict refrigerant flow. This makes a centrifugal unit equipped with a variable frequency drive (VFD) a more energy-efficient solution, for applications where the chiller is loaded less than 50%, for more than 50% of the time.

Then it was up the service elevator to the chiller room. It used to be ear plugs was not optional when walking into a room like this. Now days technology has came a long way with the much quieter centrifugal chiller.

Trane Case Studies

A Case for Chiller Conversion - Moving out of CFCs http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/conv2.asp
Pasadena Corporate Center Chooses Direct-Fired Absorption http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/pasadena.asp
Major Chiller Replacement Project Completed Over Three Day Weekend http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/broward.asp
Re-optimized Chiller Plant at Hewlett-Packard Features 2 GPM Design http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/hp.asp
Case Study for the State of New Mexico Buildings http://www.trane.com/commercial/library/newmexico2.asp

To learn more about Chillers, please view these selected articles...

Chiller Checks

Cost-Effectiveness Example - Large Electric Chillers

Better Chill, Better pill

Rotary Screw Chillers

You may download a demonstration version of Demand Analyzer™ that simulates the energy performance of buildings with DOE-2 (energy analysis software developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and displays the simulation results in various types of graphs and reports. Demand Analyzer enables a user to achieve the accuracy of an 8760 hour/year simulation with DOE-2, but without the need to understand the complexities of the DOE-2 Building Description Language (BDL), since the user simply selects a typical building prototype and then customizes the prototype using available options.

Hope to see more of you in our engineering ranks at our next meeting, as AFE members. :>)

Please see our scrapbook for more pictures.

Thanks Again Trane Company, for the great time!

AFE Members: We exist because of the continued support of our Sponsors. When you have needs, please show your appreciation by contacting them.

GO TOTOP

AFE Chapter 26 - Serving Greater St. Louis Area, USA

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