The design of this unit is an excellent example of General Air Products’ design ability vs. that of our competition. The customer we built this unit for required a cooling solution for hydraulic fluid in their test and measuring lab equipment. They had received several offers that met the needs of their equipment but these offers called for one large chiller to be installed outdoors, piped into a buffer tank that cooled the lab equipment. The problem for our customer was one of space – they simply did not have the room in their lab for a large buffer tank.
Our engineering team worked up a different approach in the form of a loop-in-loop system that provided redundancy as well as the elimination of a buffer tank. Instead of one large chiller, we offered two smaller chillers – as you can see in the picture. These two air cooled chillers (combined 47.5 ton capacity) provide the refrigerant loop to the heat exchanger in the center that uses a 5 HP pump to move the hydraulic fluid through the process loop. As the coolant from the refrigerant loop passes along side the hot hydraulic fluid from the process loop the heat is removed from the process. This loop-in-loop process removes the need for a buffer tank. As such we are able to have this loop-in-loop hydraulic cooling system installed outside entirely – saving our customers lab space as specified.
Furthermore, with two air cooled chillers, instead of one, our customer is able to continue running their process in the event that a chiller is undergoing maintenance or down for any other reason by simply adjusting the settings on the other chiller.
As you can see working with General Air Products means getting the job done right. We were able to meet our customers system requirements, save their floor space which was in short supply and exceed their vision by providing a redundant system all while easily keeping with in their budget restraints. Please contact us with your application requirements – custom or standard – and see the job done right.