Process Water Chiller Redesign & Installation

• Client: Manufacturer of Rubber Surgical Products
• Location: Northeast Ohio, Akron, Summit County

Problem

A Northeast Ohio manufacturer of rubber products for the hospital/surgical market came to us with a 120-ton process water chiller that they had been sinking larger and larger amounts of money into over the past couple of years. More troublesome than the monetary cost were the headaches that resulted from inconsistent chilled water temperatures, the added costs of regularly having to use city water to cool their process, and the occasional surprise production shut-down.

The chiller was old and to the point that, once the cost of various repairs were estimated, the obvious solution to their problem was to replace it with a new one.

Solution

After doing an engineering analysis of their process needs we determined that the company didn't need all of the cooling capacity that would have been possible from their existing process water chiller, had it been in good working condition. By our calculations the company could afford to reduce the nominal capacity of the chiller from 120-tons down to 100-tons and still have plenty of chilling capacity to handle those design-hot days.

In addition to supplying them with their new Trane process water chiller, we redesigned the chiller-loop portion of their chilled water system complete with mostly new, shortened piping, a new motor/pump combo to keep it all flowing at the proper rate, and a new remote start system which gave production employees the ability to start and stop the system without having to go outside.

Equipment

• One new Grundfos chiller-loop water pump
• One new 100-ton Trane process water chiller