Application Considerations
part of those jobs. See “Energy and economic analysis of alternatives” on page 26.
Number of chillers
The number of chillers to install is a function of redundancy requirements and first cost. In general, the more chillers installed, the higher the initial cost. Therefore, many small systems only use one chiller. Most chillers in the 20 through 200 ton range use multiple compressors with multiple refrigeration circuits and provide a reasonable level of cooling redundancy. The only system controls installed on a single chiller installation may be a clock and ambient lockout switch to enable and disable the
As systems get larger, the owner may require more redundancy, leading them to install multiple chillers. Some designers use 200 tons as the maximum job size for a single chiller.
When there is more than one chiller, there are many more system control decisions to be made including:
•enabling the second chiller,
•turning the second chiller off, and
•failure recovery.
Parallel or series
Parallel configurations are more common than series configurations. (See “Parallel Chillers” on page 42.) In chiller systems with an even number of chillers, there are advantages to putting them into a series configuration, especially if low or variable water flow is desired. This offers the benefits of better system efficiency and higher capacity because the upstream chiller produces water at a warmer temperature. Series chillers should not be applied with low system ΔTs, because the maximum flow through the chillers may be reached. Efforts to eliminate the
79)must be addressed for both configurations. The energy and control
requirements of series chillers are covered in “Series Chillers” on page 44.
Part load system operation
For small
20 | Chiller System Design and Control |