How do Chillers Work? Compressors

Showing how do chillers work with pipework of black centrifugal compressor

How do Chillers Work? Compressors

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Category : Chiller Basics

How do chillers work, this time focusing on compressors. Read below and we will explore the subject in detail…

The compressor can be seen as the heart of a chiller system. As explained in the last article in our Chiller Basics series: it enables the principle of the pressure temperature relationship to take place and circulates the refrigerant.

Evaporator

The sucking action of the compressor drops the pressure in the evaporator. This lower pressure, corresponding to a lower temperature, enables the refrigerant to boil off, absorbing latent heat from the process. The refrigerant, laden with heat energy, is then sucked into the compressor.

Condenser

The refrigerant is discharged from the compressor at a high pressure, relative to a high temperature, this is sufficiently above atmospheric temperature to enable the latent heat in the refrigerant to exchange into the surrounding air.

How do Chillers Work - Mass Flow Rate of Compressors

Compressors enable the refrigerant to flow around the system. The higher the pressure of the refrigerant, the higher the mass and so the higher the mass flow rate. In low temperature systems that run on a vacuum, a very large compressor is needed to achieve the required mass flow rate and so to cool the process.

Below are the 4 main types of compressors and how they work…

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How do Chillers Work - Scroll Compressors

This compressor is more often found on smaller chillers. Scroll is another way of describing a spiral. There are two spirals, one inside the other. One of them is fixed and the other one orbits. This creates crescent shaped gaps in between the two spirals. The volume of these crescent shapes gets smaller towards the middle of the spirals and so compresses the refrigerant. The refrigerant is then discharged through a port at the middle of the scrolls.

Maintenance

Scroll compressors are meant to be maintenance free as they are hermetically sealed with no moving parts on the outside. However, the correct amount and sufficient quality of lubricating oil must be maintained to prolong its life. A lack of routine maintenance by a chiller company causes frequent compressor failures and also allows acid to accumulate in the system. This acid causes further compressor failures to occur. Give us a bell and we will put together a tailor made maintenance schedule to prolong the life of your plant.

How do Chillers Work - Reciprocating Compressors

Small

These compressors can be small and used for low capacity applications. The motor is usually inside the compressor with the cylinder heads being removable. This is described as being a semi hermetic compressor.

Large

Reciprocating compressors can also be very large and often arranged in multiple compressor systems for high capacity applications. They are open drive when used with ammonia refrigerant which means that the motor is external from the compressor. This is because ammonia corrodes the copper windings of the motor.

How They Work

The circular motion of the crankshaft is converted into the linear motion of the connecting rods and pistons running up and down inside the cylinders- see a video of how they work. Another way of describing back and forth linear motion is reciprocating. The refrigerant is sucked into the cylinder on the down stroke and then the suction inlet valves are closed. The trapped refrigerant is compressed on the up stroke and then the discharge valves are opened when the piston reaches the top of the cylinder.

Maintenance

Reciprocating compressors need regular maintenance and strip downs at pre prescribed intervals. Failure for this to be carried out results in internal components becoming worn or loose. This imbalance in the compressor causes further wear and damage to take place. Eventually something like a piston comes loose and a compressor smash up occurs. The damage is usually limited due a low oil pressure condition occurring from the location of where the part came loose. Sometimes, however, parts of the connecting rods stay attached to the crankshaft which flail around inside the compressor. An example of this is when a compressor we rebuilt had carried on running on the last one of its 8 cylinders. The rest of the internal compressor components were reduced to small, triangle shaped pieces of metal in the sump. Our maintenance saves money!

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How do Chillers Work - Screw Compressors

A pair of matched helical rotors are machined to a high tolerance. One of them is driven by a motor and the other one interlocks with it. The gap between the rotors gets smaller as the refrigerant continues down the screw and so compression is achieved. Oil is injected into the screw to provide a seal, to lubricate and to cool the rotors.

Maintenance

This type of compressor is very reliable and can quite often out live the chiller. The components around the screw, however, require regular maintenance and replacement to enable the compressor to function effectively. Some of these components include the loading solenoids and coils, also the slide valve and its potentiometer which senses its position. When these components are not working as they should, the compressor cannot match the required load and so excessive electricity consumption occurs. The inspection, adjustment and replacement of these components is another way of how our maintenance saves money.

How do Chillers Work - Centrifugal Compressors

These compressors are mostly found on very high capacity systems used for the cooling of large industrial processes, district cooling and the cooling of large facilities. The compressor in the photo, however, is a small centrifugal compressor used for the cooling of a building.

How They Work

The refrigerant is sucked into the middle of the impellor. Then, centrifugal force pushes it out to the tip of the impellor edge and so providing the compression. Unlike the compressors above, these compressors are not positive displacement and so they have a lower compression ratio. That is to say: a lower difference in pressure between the suction and the discharge.

Maintenance

Regular oil and filter changes are required to prolong the life of the bearings. When this kind of compressor fails due to worn bearings and damaged internal components, the rebuild is extremely expensive. Read more about our centrifugal compressor remanufacturing facility

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Hit the Tags at the top of the page to navigate your way to our extensive library of further reading on this subject.

Read more about types of compressors on the Carel website

Man commissioning a chiller in Saudi wearing head gear

Saudi Chiller Commissioning

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Category : Overseas Customers

We arranged the trip to carry out Saudi chiller commissioning for our Company Director and overseas engineer Dave Thompson. 2x 500kw air cooled chillers had been positioned at high level on a gantry. These were at the back of a newly constructed building at a factory in Jeddah. The factory produces plastic water pipes used for buildings and industry. Their own pipework, produced onsite, was used for the water systems of the plant in this article.

Water System Check Valves

There are two underground water system reservoirs for the plant. A check valve is fitted below the water line on the inlet pipe feeding all of the pumps. This ensures that water is available to the pumps on start up, despite the reservoirs being below the pumps.

Saudi Chiller Commissioning of Chiller Pump Set

The chiller pump set sucks water from the underground chiller reservoir. It then discharges the water through a plate heat exchanger, then it flows up to the chillers. The chilled water then returns 5°C cooler back to the underground chiller reservoir.

Saudi Chiller Commissioning of PHE Pump Set

Another pump set sucks from the separate underground process reservoir and discharges through the other side of the above mentioned plate heat exchanger. The water is chilled by around 5°C which can be adjusted with a pressure regulating valve on the outlet of the PHE. This chilled water then returns to the underground process reservoir.

Saudi Chiller Commissioning of Process Pump Set

A third pump set also sucks from the above mentioned underground process reservoir. It then discharges up to a ring main which goes along the top of 6 lines. Then, it drains down into plastic extrusion moulding machines to cool the newly formed plastic pipe. It does this at just the right rate to prevent bending and distortion. After this, the chilled water drains at gravity pressure back into the underground process reservoir.

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Control Panels for Pump Inverters

All of the pumps run on inverter drives which saves a significant amount of electricity. These drives are located in three panels- one for each pump set. A spare inverter is available in each panel for easy switch over in the event of failure. A touch screen pump control display is fitted to each panel. Each display is wired into a PLC.

Touch Screen Central Control

The PLCs in each panel are in turn wired into a Schneider Electric touch screen central control interface. This is located on the front of the middle panel. All of the analogue sensor and transducer inputs are wired into this interface from around the plant. The underground process reservoir temperature sensor was found to be reading 4°C high, so an offset was put into the program. The digital outputs go from here to the various components around the plant.

3 Way Valve

One of these components is a 3 way valve on the plate heat exchanger. This valve regulates the percentage flow of water through the PHE, relative to the percentage of bypass to the chillers. In high load conditions, 100% of water is pumped through the PHE. With no load, 0% of water goes through the PHE with full bypass to the chillers. In a low load condition, the valve modulates at between 0% and 100%. All of these scenarios achieve a close control at 20°C in the underground process reservoir.

Saudi Chiller Commissioning of Filtration Systems

Chiller Evaporators

The chiller evaporators are protected by a ‘y’ strainer on each inlet.

PHE Chiller Side

The plate heat exchanger also keeps contaminants from the process reaching the evaporators of the chillers. This prevents the premature failure of the evaporators and also prevents heat exchange issues due to thermal insulation.

PHE and Process Bollfilter

Both of these water systems go through a Bollfilter back flush system. As the difference in pressure between filter inlet and outlet reaches a predetermined level, the back flushing operation is initiated with a green light being illuminated. This feature prevents the need to manually clean the filter at scheduled intervals. During the visit, however, these filters were overwhelmed by the residue left in the pipes and a narrow 100 micron filter size. The maximum difference in pressure was exceeded and the filtration system yellow warning light became illuminated. The filters were stripped down, cleaned and reassembled.

‘Y’ Strainer in Parallel

The onsite engineer who had assisted in designing the system had the foresight to build a second filter into the water system. This ‘y’ strainer runs in parallel to the above Bollfilter and ensures seamless operation of the factory in the event of a blocked Bollfilter.

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Start Up during Saudi Chiller Commissioning

On first start up of the chillers, they were both found to be tripping on high pressure and not loading up. The chillers run on R134a which is a low pressure refrigerant in the UK. In Saudi Arabia, however, the ambient is around 40°C. This translates to an operating pressure of between 15 bar and 18 bar depending on loading and water temperature.

Loading Solenoids

Unloader switches are available on each system. These feed back to the PLC, from here the program energises the loading solenoids. They had been set to 14 bar which was the cause of the unloading issue. Our overseas engineer set the switches to 19 bar.

High Pressure Switches

He then changed the high pressure cut outs from 15 bar to 20 bar.

PRVs Checked during Saudi Chiller Commissioning

The pressure relief valves vent at 23 bar which is enough of a difference in pressure from the high pressure cut out.

Low Load Trips

Because only one line was running at the time of commissioning, one of the chillers was found to have tripped on a low temperature related trip. This fault had occurred the following morning when the water temperature had become too low due to the minimum run time of the compressors. The freeze up set point was also found to be too high at 7°C. Our overseas engineer entered a password into the front end of each chiller and modified the parameters to prevent this fault re occurring.

Full Load Testing

The water system temperature was allowed to build up to 30°C when production in the factory was offline. Then, the chillers were ran in anger until set point was achieved. An efficient superheat value of 3°C was recorded on all of the systems. This is due to electronic expansion valves being fitted. When the factory came back online, the systems were found to be off cycling or unloading to match the load.

Chiller Redundancy

Redundancy has been considered in the capacity of the chillers to allow for future factory expansion and systems being offline during repairs.

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To read more about chiller control systems hit the Tag at the top of the page.

Read more about Jeddah on Wikipedia

Oil return solenoid removed during industrial chiller service

Industrial Chiller Service

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Category : Articles

On an industrial chiller service visit, the ammonia alarm was found to have been triggered.

News Article No.10

Industrial Chiller Service Faults

The onsite engineer had fault found the chiller and silenced the alarm, the yellow light was still flashing. The red light was lit on the panel and the red LED was illuminated on the ammonia alarm console. He had reported a smell of ammonia to us over the phone. This gave us a priority of getting to site, as many other alarms of this nature are often spurious. Our engineer attended site within an hour and confirmed that the fault finding was correct as described by the onsite engineer. The chiller is containerized in design as it is situated outside. All around the chiller are door panels for access to the various system components.

Breathing Apparatus and PPE

He donned his mask and full length ammonia resistant PPE before opening one of the panel doors. This was to ensure that he did not get overwhelmed by the refrigerant when he opened the door. He started with the door into the storage area of the containerized chiller. A strong blast of ammonia came out in his face- lucky for the PPE!

Localising the Fault

Working his way around the chiller, our engineer found more and more hazardous door openings! Eventually he found the culprit: one of the two flanges were leaking on the oil return solenoid. The refrigerant vapour was coming out in its usual white form. The oil return pipe feeds off the oil pot which is a chamber that the oil sinks into from the refrigerant economizer. This vessel was valved off and the other end of the pipe valved off too.

Pinpointing the Fault

Now that the ammonia refrigerant leak had started to calm down- it was possible to see through the white vapour to exactly which of the flanges was leaking. It was the right one as seen in the picture. It consists of an ‘o’ ring made of ammonia resistant rubber material.

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Industrial Chiller Service in Local

The above mentioned chiller runs in local in a lead/ lag configuration with the adjacent chiller. That is to say- there is no wire or modem to a remote location. A panel is available in between the two chillers to sequence the switch over between the two. When the chiller tripped out due to the fault, the other chiller was supposed to have been enabled. This did not happen, so our engineer investigated the situation. The sequencer panel sends out a 24v fault feedback signal to each chiller. This, in turn, goes through a relay and back to the sequencer panel if all is good. When a fault occurs, the volts drop out to the relay in the chiller and a relay drops out in the sequencer. When the relay drops out in the sequencer, a normally closed contact makes and brings a red light on. This was not happening, so our engineer followed it through with his multimeter. He found a blown 1 Amp control fuse in the chiller, he replaced it and it blew again. After some careful research he found that there was an earth leakage due to the ingress of water into a safety switch. This switch was nothing to do with the above, but it blew the whole control circuit. Having reinstated the fuse, he found that the panel switched over satisfactorily in local.

Advantages

This kind of operation method has an advantage in its simplicity. There are no complicated BMS systems for the chiller to be integrated into. A sequencer panel is easy to construct and maintain- keeping the costs down to the end user.

Disadvantages

The disadvantage of this kind of system is that the first thing the factory usually notices is that they are loosing the process. The water temperature getting too high is the first alarm signal. With this site, however, there is a permanent onsite engineer on hand. He is experienced with the first checks to carry out and can often get the plant running with no problem.

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Standing Pressure during Industrial Chiller Service

The standing pressure was taken into account on the return visit to fit the oil return solenoid valve seal. Because the valve is on the low side of the system, when the chiller is off, the pressure is higher than when it is on. Therefore, so long as the seal pressure tests to this pressure, then all will be good when the system is running. That is assuming that the valve seals work satisfactorily at a lower temperature range. There are issues sometimes when a seal will be okay at ambient temperature but will leak when it becomes brittle at a colder temperature. This happens usually on an old seal and, indeed, this condition can be tested for when run testing the system.

Leak Testing during Industrial Chiller Service

On fitting the seal, our engineer donned full length ammonia resistant PPE and breathing apparatus. A little at a time, he introduced refrigerant into the area of the valve seal. Any residual air being purged through a valve.

Pressure and Temperature

The standing pressure of refrigerant is affected by temperature. That is to say- that the higher the temperature- the higher the pressure. On the day this job was carried out, the ambient temperature was 12°C and using an app on his phone, he calculated that the pressure should be 5.6bar. This is consistent with Charles’ Law of Constant Volume with a coefficient added for this particular refrigerant. If the pressure had been higher than this, it would indicate the presence of air in the system. Daltons’ Law of Partial Pressures states that all gasses in a vessel will act as if they are on their own, therefore, causing a higher pressure.

Run Testing during Industrial Chiller Service

After the pressure was built up to full standing pressure and the seal held satisfactorily, the system was then run tested to ensure, as stated above, that the seal performed well across the full temperature range during the operation of the plant.

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Mass Flow Rate during Industrial Chiller Service

The mass of refrigerant passing, which is measured by the second.

Suction Density

In this case of the oil return valve seal, we are looking at the density of the low side refrigerant as it passes into the suction port of the compressor. This is shown on the LP gauge near to the compressor. The higher the pressure of the refrigerant, the more refrigerant there is- so it has a higher mass flow rate. This system has a refrigerant saturation point of 1°C which corresponds to a pressure 3.4bar. That is a high mass flow rate for this kind of refrigerant. This is because this refrigerant is usually used in low temperature applications where the pressure of the refrigerant is below that of the atmosphere. In that condition, when a leak occurs on the low side of the system- air leaks in. Air bleed valves are available to remove this unwanted air from the system.

Compressor Loading

The bigger the compressor on a chiller- the higher the mass flow rate. Most compressors have loading solenoids, vanes, or a slide valve to regulate this.

Piston Displacement

Reciprocating compressors use loading solenoids to increase piston displacement. Usually, oil from the oil pump holds the piston valves open and so preventing compression on that cylinder. When more flow rate is needed- the loading solenoid de energizes- the piston valves drop and the cylinder comes into action. Therefore, increasing the mass of refrigerant through the compressor.

Vanes

Vanes are used on centrifugal compressors to increase the flow of refrigerant through the compressor. An actuator linked to a chain is used to open the vanes. The controls work out the correct position of the vanes for a given load condition.

Slide Valve

The slide valve offers a seamless amount of loading, anywhere between 0% and 100% A slide valve potentiometer senses the position of the slide so that the controls can regulate the flow through the compressor. The screw compressor in this article uses a slide valve- on full load with the slide at 100% all readings were taken with a good read back. Another job done- another happy customer!

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Carel controller and tick sheet during chilling plant maintenance visit

Chilling Plant Maintenance Visit

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Category : Chilling Plant

On this chilling plant maintenance visit, particular attention was made to compressor loading. This was to ensure that the compressors are capable of operating at 100%. With summer now here- we want the plant capable of running at full capacity.

Controller Loading Timer

On start up, the controller goes through a timer, this is to prevent the compressor from loading up too quickly, achieving set point and going off. With available load, the compressor would start back up and go into a short cycling condition. With 5 minute intervals, the controller brings System 1 screw compressor on at 25%. Then System 2 screw compressor on at 25%. In stages, the controller loads up the compressors until it matches the load.

Compressor Loading Solenoid Coils

These are 24vac. The controller sends out a run signal through the solenoid coil which magnetises the lift valve inside.

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Compressor Loading Solenoid Valves

As the valve lifts, discharge pressure oil passes through a channel and pushes the slide valve open a 25% stage. There are 4 valves for the 4 stages.

Chilling Plant Maintenance Visit at 100%

The chilling plant being maintained on this visit was now running at 100% on both systems. The system readings can easily be read by following the menu in the Carrel controller. Superheat and subcooling readings were found to be within normal operating limits. Also, a good read back was recorded on the water system.

Compressor Unloading

At the end of the day, the three way valves on the air handlers closed down according to the BMS schedule. This meant that the water was diverted away from the heat exchangers in the air handlers. This return water had not picked up any heat, so the controller started unloading the compressors. It did this through 75% to 50% then 25% until the water system was down to setpoint.

Off Cycle at Chilling Plant Maintenance Visit

The BMS stops the chiller with the remote start/ stop signal. Should the BMS malfunction, the chiller would stay off most of the night anyway. The water system pump adds heat into the water system. Therefore, every so often enough load would be available to bring one system on at 25% for a short while.

To read more about chiller compressor systems click the Tag at the top of the page.

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Green chiller panel with doors open, showing contactors and PCBs during water chiller maintenance

Water Chiller Maintenance

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Category : Water Chillers

Maximus chillers provides water chiller maintenance to all kinds of machines. Some of which have kilowatt hour meters fitted. This means we can monitor the reduction in energy consumption, directly as a result of our maintenance being carried out.

Efficient Water Chiller Maintenance

Maintenance is carried out to ensure every aspect of your chiller is running efficiently. We believe our maintenance checklist is the best in the industry. It looks in detail at the running conditions of the plant, component adjustments and the parameters in the controls. The checklist is used to assess if there are problems that are starting to occur before a safety shutdown happens. Below are some of the issues that we keep on top of to increase the efficiency of your plant.

Shell and Tube Insulation

The build up of dirt acts as an insulator in shell and tube heat exchangers. These are used for the evaporation and the condensing of the refrigerant.

The Evaporator

In the evaporator, should the tubes be fouled, there will be a reduction in latent heat absorbed into the system. This will cause the plant to stay on longer and use considerably more energy. Should the tubes become considerably fouled, the chiller will malfunction and eventually system shutdown will occur.

The Condenser

In a shell and tube condenser, the reverse of the above will occur. Tube fouling, acting as an insulator, will prohibit the rejection of heat from the system. The head pressure control will open the condenser controls to try and assist in heat rejection. Heavy fouling will cause an increase in the consumption of energy. Eventually a safety shutdown will occur causing loss of production.

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Compressor Loading during Water Chiller Maintenance

If the loading of the reciprocating compressors is faulty, the plant will not be able to effectively match the load.

Over Loading

Too much loading may occur, causing the water chillers to achieve set point too quickly. The plant will then go through the off cycle. This means that the plant will have to load back up, using more energy than matching the load continuously.

Under Loading

Should the plant be unable to load up to the required level to match the load, this will cause the water temperature to creep up and the lag chillers being called for to match the load. More chillers running than necessary dramatically increases energy consumption.

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Read about leak checking at the Refcom site

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