Air Cooled Chiller Superheat Maintenance
Category : Chiller Technology
Air cooled chiller superheat maintenance at Maximus Chillers. During the visit, we found a high superheat condition with an Italian chiller. The customer had reported a low refrigerant charge trip out. The customer raised the order, so we got straight to work on the leak during the maintenance visit.
Pressure Temperature Relationship
Put simply, the higher the pressure, the higher the temperature of the refrigerant- this is consistent with Charles’s Law of Constant Volume. The refrigerant was found to be at a higher temperature above saturation (or boiling point) than usual- which is a high superheat condition. The chiller runs on R134a, which is a HFC refrigerant.
Air Cooled Chiller Superheat Maintenance with Leak Finding
Our engineer used his leak identification equipment to find the leak. After looking around the chiller he found the leak adjacent to the shell and tube evaporator, where 4 bolts hold the suction pipe on. This coupling is sealed with a gasket.
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Chiller Pump Down
Because of the location of the leak, our engineer decided to pump the chiller down to the condenser and valve the evaporator off. A lot less time consuming than setting up the recovery unit to decant the refrigerant.
Air Cooled Chiller Superheat Maintenance with Leak Repairs
He used his Allen key set to remove the suction pipe from the evaporator. On inspection, the paper gasket had deteriorated then been pushed out by the pressure in the system. All of our engineers carry an extensive range of commonly used parts and materials as standard in their cars. This is to reduce down time for the customer. He made up a new paper gasket, coated it with a special sealing compound, then re fitted the suction pipe to the evaporator. He then used his torque wrench on the Allen key bolts to the correct manufacturer’s recommendations. The system was then pressure tested and dehydrated as per standard industry guidelines.
Screw Compressor
The superheat value at the Bitzer screw compressor was found to be within normal operating values after additional refrigerant was added to the system. A further follow up leak test was carried out at a later date according to F-gas regulations. The paperwork being kept in the F-gas file in the chief engineer’s office.
To read more about air cooled chiller maintenance click the Tag at the top of the page.
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To read more about vapour compression on Wikipedia | Click Here
