For more than a century, ozone has been used in Europe for purifying drinking water and is currently used in the United States for purifying bottled water and decontaminating cooling towers. The cities of Los Angeles, Dallas, and Las Vegas all currently use ozone to purify their water supply
Here in the Phoenix metropolitan area, adverse water conditions require intelligent water treatment strategies to adequately maintain water cooled equipment. Proper management of the characteristics of the cooling tower sump water along with maintaining good tower hygiene in general accomplishes at least four positive things.
1) It avoids wasting excess water.
2) It inhibits scale formation.
3) It controls biological growth.
4) It reduces the corrosion rate of metal parts in the tower.
Let’s discuss how a cooling tower operates to understand why proper water treatment is important.
Most residents in the valley are familiar with an evaporative cooler. Water from the evaporative cooler sump is circulated by a pump over pads in the evaporative cooler and outside air is drawn through the pads. As the air is drawn through the wet pads some of the water evaporates and cools the air. The cooler air is then circulated into the space where cooling is desired. In the process of cooling the air, the water being recirculated across the pads is also cooled.
That is exactly the same principle being employed in the cooling tower, but on a much grander scale. Rejecting large quantities of heat from a building’s mechanical system requires a lot of water to be evaporated. For example, a one hundred ton water cooled chiller operating at full capacity for 24 hours would require the evaporation of more than four thousand gallons of water. That brings us to the subject of the characteristics of the make up water. Make up water is the water supply that replaces the water being evaporated in the cooling tower.
Here in the metro area, water conditions vary widely because our water comes from several different wells as well as surface sources. The water quality may change rapidly over a short period of time because different sources are utilized for the water supply. Each well has different water characteristics and they often vary widely from one side of town to the other. Water that comes from surface sources, like the Central Arizona Project will usually have significantly different characteristics than well water. Surface water quality may also be influenced by weather conditions such as drought or increased runoff.
As water evaporates in the cooling tower all of the non-volatile components stay behind in the sump of the cooling tower. There is actually a lot more in water than what we would call hardness (carbonates). There are also chlorides, suspended dust particles and biological microorganisms. As more and more water is added to replenish the water that is being evaporated, these dissolved and suspended components in the sump water continue to accumulate. If no measures are taken to control the concentration of these components in the water, the solution eventually increases in concentration to a point where “stuff” starts coming out of solution. This “stuff” ends up getting deposited on the surfaces that the water comes in contact with.
Have you ever seen an evaporative cooler where the pads haven’t been changed for a long while? I’ve seen them so encrusted with mineral deposits that the blower could no longer pull air through them. I’ve also seen them produce a bounty of biological growth in the sump water. That is exactly what will happen in a cooling tower without adequate attention to hygiene and an appropriate water treatment strategy.
When solids that are dissolved in water come out of solution they are deposited first on heat exchange surfaces and surfaces where the water is being evaporated. Heat exchangers, water cooled condensers, drift eliminators, the tube bundle in closed circuit cooling towers and the fill in open cooling towers are a few examples of surfaces where this occurs.
Deposition of mineral scale, dirt and biological fouling on any heat exchange surfaces can result in reduced heat transfer, reduced tower efficiency and increased energy costs. While reducing deposition of these is important with regard to the cooling tower, it is absolutely critical to avoid scaling or fouling in the water cooled condenser. Scaling and fouling in the condenser significantly reduces heat transfer capability and will seriously impact energy costs, performance and reliability.
A two part strategy is usually employed to manage the mineral content of the sump water. Part one is to maintain the sump water pH within allowable limits and to feed the correct type and amount of chemicals to help the water keep more of the dissolved solids in solution. Part two is intentionally sending some of the sump water down the drain (blow down). Blow down reduces the highly concentrated mineral content of the sump water by diluting it with the fresh make up water being added to replace the intentionally wasted water.
Biological growth can also become a significant health risk depending on the particular organism involved. Allowing mud and biological growth to accumulate in the sump of a cooling tower can accelerate corrosion of the sump and shorten the life cycle of the cooling tower. It can also provide a haven for microbes to escape the effects of a biocide.
Proper water treatment strategy and good cooling tower hygiene is not a one size fits all solution. The quality of the make up water will require an adjustment of the type of the chemicals and biocide utilized. It may also require changing feed and blow down rates for proper control. In addition, these requirements may be altered by the characteristics of each individual cooling tower installation.
According to Alan Bateman of DB Water Technologies, there are several things a good cooling tower water treatment program should address in order to be effective. They are total dissolved solids (TDS), hardness, pH, chlorides, suspended solids, an appropriate method for biological control and a proper blow down strategy. Each cooling tower manufacturer publishes recommendations for maintaining proper water conditions of the sump water. The advice of a qualified water treatment professional is advised to ensure that each item above is included in your overall strategy for cooling tower water treatment.
Mark Strahan is a 35 year veteran of the HVAC industry and is currently an account manager with Burt-Burnett, Inc., an HVAC mechanical service and EMS controls contractor. Mark can be reached with comments or questions at (480) 557-8593 or strahan@burt-burnett.com
You hear the buzz, 150 watts per square foot, 200 watts per square foot, more than 300 watts per square foot… Is it real? If so, what does it mean in terms of resources? Are data center server, application, and communication systems at risk in the event of even a single mechanical or electrical systems failure?
It is a topic data center operators cannot avoid. Servers continue getting denser, and the ability to power and cool large, dense systems implementations has given us interesting challenges. With good planning we can certainly overcome those challenges; however we also need to understand the true cost of higher watts per square foot on both real estate budget and risk.
Let’s look at a 10,000 square foot data center. The task is to understand the space requirements to build infrastructure needed to support a 100watt, 150watt, and 200watt/sqft facility. To set the task, we will assume the 10,000 sqft space is gross, with no space lost to common areas, columns, or other obstructions. For this discussion we will also not account for the space required to support emergency power generators or cooling towers.
Cooling a High Density Data Center
Data center cooling is potentially the biggest concern of all. While we may be able to add redundancy to cooling towers, it is very difficult to add redundancy to air handling units. Physically you could potentially add a +1 cooling unit in a data center space; however the unit would need to immediately take over for individual CRACs in a location sensitive environment. Unless you can move a 20 or 30ton CRAC unit on demand, you have exposure.
With a raised floor that exposure is reduced, as the intention is to pressure the raised floor area with cold air that will be blown up into the supply side of server equipment. Having a standby or backup CRAC unit could contribute to overall floor pressure. For plenum HVAC equipment on a VCT (solid) floor, this is much more difficult, as nearly all high density installations with plenum air handling units will have custom designs, including custom ducting connected to the units.
At >150 watts/sqft you will have very little time to respond once the unit has failed, as supply sides of units will have no directed cold air. In addition, hot air return systems may also fail, causing stagnation in hot areas that will further support hot air recirculation.
This risk can best be minimized through aggressive preventive maintenance schedules and having adequate temporary cooling units on hand in the event of a failure or emergency.
Cooling is calculated in terms of British Thermal Units (BTUs) – or the amount of heat which can be removed from a space with assistance of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning equipment (HVAC). To calculate cooling tonnage, use the following formula:
1 Watt = 3.412 BTU
12,000 BTU = 1 Ton of cooling capacity
If you have a group of high density servers, to calculate the cooling requirement you can use the following guidelines:
Example
1 Server = 2000 watts
40 servers = 80,000 watts
80,000 Watts * 3.412 = 272960 (BTU)
272960 BTU / 12,000 = 22.74 tons cooling requirement
Another example, if you have a 100 sqft cage, and have built your cage out to 175W/sqft, you would have the following cooling requirement:
100 * 175w = 17,500w
17,500w * 3.412 = 58,710 (BTU)
58,710 / 12,000 = ~5 tons cooling
Space Requirements for Mechanical Equipment
Higher density data center spaces come at a cost, in electricity and in space needed for both mechanical (HVAC) and electrical distribution. If we look at the space requirements for air handling units, using an Emerson 30ton unit as an example, the space needed to support this unit is about 94 square feet. The unit itself is about 3ft x 10ft (30sqft). Adding space for access and maintenance (3ft along the edges, and 4 ft in front of the unit for maintenance and access) brings the total to 94.
So, on the mechanical side, for every 30 tons of cooling needed you will contribute at least 94 sqft to cooling. If you need a +1 redundancy in your cooling requirement, you will lose another 94sqft for each redundant unit planned.
Let’s put this into an example – just accounting for space needed to support HVAC equipment. We’ll make the assumption water piping to support condenser or chilled water loops is overhead or under raised floor.
10,000 sqft at 200w/sqft
2,000,000 watts requiring cooling
2,000,000 * 3.412 = 6,824,000 BTUs
6,824,000 / 12,000 = 568 tons cooling
568 /30 (using 30ton CRAC units) = 19 units
19* 94 (sqft/unit) = 1786 sqft required for CRAC units
The cost in electricity is summed up as:
30ton CRAC unit w/2 compressors = 110amps at 480v for peak use
30ton CRAH unit w/25 HP Fan motor = 23amps at 480v
600ton cooling tower = 50amps at 480v
600ton water chillers if needed for chilled water system = 1200 amps at 480v
Electrical Systems and Distribution
Our data center is also going to require both primary and emergency power systems to bring us up to 200 watts/sqft. Data center power systems include the following components:
- Switchgear needed to distribute primary utility power presented by the supplying power company- Either buss duct or “pipe and wire” distribution from switchgear to facility- Automatic transfer switches to connect either utility power or emergency backup power to facility- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) to provide temporary battery power to facility- Switchgear to distribute 480v to mechanical equipment and UPS- Transformers to break (in the USA) 480v to 208/120v- Distribution panels to distribute 208/120v to individual user breakers
As a guide, 480V panels require 42″ spacing due to the high power, potential for arc flash potential, and safe maintenance zone.
To accommodate the HVAC (CRAC or CRAH) equipment, UPSs, switchgear, transformers, and automatic transfer equipment you can plan on the following metrics (using CRG West experience):
· 100w/sqft
- CRAH or CRAC units @94sqft (10 units required) = 940sqft
- Electrical equipment = 700sqft
- 10,000 sqft data center M&E requirement = 1640sqft
· 150w/sqft
- CRAH or CRAC units @94sqft (15 units required) = 1410sqft
- Electrical equipment = 1000sqft
- 10,000 sqft data center M&E requirement = 2410sqft
· 200w/sqft
- CRAH or CRAC units @94sqft (20 units required) = 1880sqft
- Electrical equipment = 1400sqft
- 10,000 sqft data center M&E requirement = 3280sqft
Another way to look at this component is if you are planning to use 10,000sqft as your total usable space. Then you will lose an increasingly large amount of server-usable space as you increase the watts/sqft density within the space. At that point you need to determine if the loss of usable data center space with high watts/sqft is worth the increased density.
This calculation is only for data center-facing equipment. The actual cooling towers, water chillers, and emergency power generation equipment (including diesel fuel tanks), if included in your space planning requirement, will reduce the space efficiency in any data center location to around 40%. Each component of added redundancy increases the requirement for M&E equipment, as does the density requirement of watts/sqft.
Of course you can increase efficiency through use of more scientific and efficient data center designs, including hot/cold row design, heat curtains, directed heat exhaust and dropped ceilings – however there is a point that you will reach the pure physics of how much heat can be removed, regardless of design. While there are now designs incorporating chilled water into individual racks, and other rack-based cooling and heat extraction designs, most companies cannot afford the cost of building that infrastructure into their construction.
The Risk of Failure
The load of BTUs on temperature (F) is calculated as 1BTU=the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. Thus, if you have an area served by a 30ton HVAC unit, able to cool and extract energy at 360,000 BTUs, you would lose that cooling and heat removal capacity in the event of a unit failure.
This adds fuel to the debate on raised floor versus flat VCT floor. In a raised floor you are pressurizing the sub-floor with the cooling capacity offered on how many tons of cooling is available to data center space. The cold air is forced under the floor, forcing cold air up through grills or openings in the floor, hopefully into the supply side of server or data center equipment.
In the VCT environment you are ducting air into custom designs to reinforce high performance cooling. Potentially even worse, are individual rack cooling units that may be providing dedicated cooling to individual racks.
In a raised floor environment of 10,000sqft, at 200 watts/sqft, as mentioned above, you would have around 20 x 30ton cooling units available to remove heat and cool the room. This is a total of about 7.2 million BTUs of heat removal capacity. If you lose one unit, you will lose about 5% of your total under floor pressurization and heat removal capacity. Not good, and may produce some warm spots in the data center, but percentage-wise it is not catastrophic.
On the other hand, if you are using CRAC/CRAH units in a VCT environment with directed airflow, loss of a single unit comes at a much higher price tag of potentially 360,000 BTUs of heat being generated in a localized area. The effect is similar to if you had 1055 100watt light bulbs being used in a very small, localized area – the rate of heat buildup in that localized area would be extreme, with little recourse for corrective action other than to immediately position temporary cooling units in the area until the primary CRAC unit is repaired and returned to service.
This also should raise the design point that CRAC/CRAH units should never share a common electrical source. If one source of power is disrupted, you do not want to lose 100% of your cooling capacity. In addition, cooling systems should always be connected to emergency power, as it will do very little good in a high density data center to have equipment operating without support cooling.
Summary
Technically it is possible to solve just about all data center design challenges, even with dense server and other equipment continuing to push the amount of energy per piece of equipment to higher and higher levels. However, high density comes at a price. A price in how much real estate is required to support high density and redundant power systems, high density cooling requirements, and potentially the added cost of raised floor data center areas.
Even when you have designed a data center capable of supporting high density equipment, there is a high risk that failure in any part of the cooling systems will result in potentially unacceptable amounts of rapid heat buildup in localized areas – which will eventually result in catastrophic failure of computer and communications equipment.
John Savageau is a managing director at CRG-West, responsible for managing operations and architecture for several of the largest telecommunications interconnect facilities in the US, including One Wilshire in Los Angeles. He has extensive experience in telecommunications contruction, operations, and network engineering with prior positions at Sprint International, MagicNet Mongolia, Level 3 International, and the US Air Force.
Water is not only important for life but also plays a very vital role in the industrial and manufacturing sector.
But if the quality of water is not up to the required standard than ultimately it will affects the quality of an end product because water is used extensively in cleaning and cooling activities.
This can be avoided by the use of cooling water filtration technology, which effectively helps in removing many solids from cooling systems.
The method uses a membrane through which water is passed so that it can be cleaned and purified properly. When it passes through the membrane it enters the filtration unit which cleans the water from different impurities and it is cooled down in here as well.
Cooling Water filtration works in the same way as our lungs do in that they purify our body from scaling and corrosion. It basically prevents the water from coming into contact with the surface which can contain rust.
In the commercial sector, we know that the cost of these water systems is far less than that of the water itself and other types of different utilities. These filtration systems are very helpful in removing the factors of corrosion and fouling, which occur in water because of calcium carbonate, a substance which can sometimes act as bacteria and hence causes problems.
A Cooling water filtration system is also widely used in the cooling towers because of the fact that the water at this stage is in need of sedimentation. The purpose of a cooling tower is that, it allows water to pass through a filter and then allows it to cool down.
The working condition of the cooling tower is totally dependent upon the condition and quality of water itself. So if the water used in these towers is contaminated then the work output of these towers might decrease or even in some cases can lead to a failure.
Dispersants, surfactants and many chemicals can also be implemented to these systems to increase the efficiency. A cooling water filtration system alone is not capable of purifying the water, but the efficiency of the system is mostly dependent upon the quality of the water which is running inside it. So it’s an integral part to any filtration process.
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This is a technology for Cooling Tower Treatment – which is a Sustainable Natural Green Chemistry permitting maximum water savings and reducing the impact to the environment while affording a reduction in the carbon footprint found in traditional chemical treatment.
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Energy plays a very important role in industry, Industries could be classified into heavy energy consumer, medium energy consumer and low energy consumer. Organization have started doing energy audits in their plants, offices etc. Such studies has highlighted waste of energy and requirement of energy efficient technology.
Some areas for energy cost reductions.
OFFICE:
Large Corporations or factories have bigger administration offices like accounts, sales, purchase, human resources, production planning, canteens, rest rooms, common rooms etc. Each department or sections has certain utilities like air conditioners, photocopiers, fans, air washers, lights etc. Cost reduction in energy bill can be achieved through proper monitoring optimization of equipments
LIGHTING
HEATING
FANS
PLANTS
Any manufacturing unit would consume energy for its production purpose. With monitoring and proper utilization of equipments We can have substantial cost reduction in energy cost. Energy could be in various form thermal or electrical.
PRIME MOVERS ( MOTORS )
AIR CONDITIONING
COOLING TOWERS
BOILERS /FURNACES /OVENS
REFRIGERATION AND AIR COMPRESSOR
FUEL ALTERNATE
ENERGY ELECTRICAL
Lets us take a simple example of cooling tower. Cooling towers are used to cool hot water coming out of air conditioning, generators or other utilities.
Cooling Tower Fans are made up of aluminium casting these are then rotated to create draughts which in turn cools the water. These fans can be replaced by Fibre Plastic made fans or blades. These Blades are light in weight hence power consumed by motor is less. Thus by replacing metallic blades with Fibre Plastic can result in considerable savings.
Putting temperature sensors into cooling tower basin can result in stopping motors from running the moment desired temperatures are achieved.
All about cost reduction strategies, ideas, tips which would increase profitability, improve productivity, reduce waste.
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Energy efficiency means utilizing less amount of energy to supply the equivalent degree of energy service.
Energy efficiency audits are generally done in plants. It might be carried out in a household as well, but these are generally done by individuals, whereas plants or factories tend to be more concerned as these energy expenditures eat into their all-important quarterly financial reports.
Conducting audits are a crucial way to conserve. Some of the major benefits of conducting and energy audit include:
Energy efficiency audits are typically performed as a result of suddenly high energy costs. It is important to determine the appropriate requirement of energy consumption and to discover where or how to reduce energy-related expenses. An audit will also help you identify energy conservation equipment, technologies and measures that can be taken in order to reduce costs.An energy efficiency audit generally covers the following:
In the end, an energy efficiency audit leads to better energy balance, better balance of mass and heat, an establishment of specific energy consumption, and an identification of opportunities for energy efficiency.
Joel Adams works for energy efficiency Austin Texas.
Evaporative air coolers include a system of cooling in which the evaporation of a liquid, typically into the surrounding air, cools the object or a liquid in contact with it. There are number of evaporative designs that people can purchase.
* Direct Evaporative Coolers – this open circuit is used to lower the temperature of air by using what is referred to as a latent heat of evaporation, changing water into vapour. The energy in the air does not change. During the process the warm dry air is changed to cool moist air.
* Indirect Evaporative Cooling – This is a closed circuit system. It is similar to a direct evaporative cooling system. However in this case some sort of heat exchanger is needed. The cooled moist air never comes in contact with the conditioned environment.
* Two-stage Evaporative Cooling – this system is also referred to as an indirect cooling system. This is a traditional system of cooling that uses only a fraction of energy of vapour compression air condition systems. There are drawbacks to using this system however as they tend to make the air very humid which can make people very uncomfortable.
* Cooling towers – cooling towers are structures that are used for cooling water. This process works in a similar way as the evaporative air cooler system. Cooling towers are typically used on large and tall buildings or in industrial sites. They work as they transfer heat to the environment from chillers, for example in the Rankin power cycle.
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