North Campus Chiller
North Campus Chiller System | |
Sponsors |
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Team Name | Chillin' Idaho |
Duration | Summer 2016 - Fall 2016 |
Faculty Advisers | |
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Team Members |
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The University of Idaho North Campus Chiller Plant is used to create and disperse chilled water throughout the university of Idaho Facilities. The intent of this project is to develop and validate a math model of the NCCP, take inventory of the system instrumentation and see what addition sensors are needed, and also use the collected data in the math model to see how the system will perform in various operating conditions.
Background
The North Campus Chiller Plant (NCCP) is a plant that removes heat from water via absorption refrigeration cycle. The chilled water is then circulated through heat exchangers to cool university of Idaho's equipment as required. The NCCP uses cooling towers to take the heat out of the water being sent out to campus. The cooling towers work by misting the warm water down through air. The amount of heat being pulled out of the water being misted down is affected by ambient temperature.
Components of the cycle
Items | Description |
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There are pumps used for the primary and secondary loops of the system. | |
There are three cooling towers in use to reject the heat to atmosphere. This is done by moist atmospheric air cooling the water. The hot water is cooled by evaporation of some of the water into the moist air stream. | |
The Chiller is made up of four parts which include; the condenser, evaporator, compressor, and expansion valve. The condenser is the heating side of the system having high temperatures, and the evaporator is the cooling side having low temperatures. |
Problem Definition
The University of Idaho campus utilizes the North Campus Chiller Plant to supply cold water which is sent by piping into the various buildings to air handling units. Our group plans to find ways to make the chiller system more efficient by developing a model and testing it out with data collected from sensors we will install.
Instrumentation Added to Cycle
Items | Description |
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Flow meters are used throughout the system to record the data at specified points.
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A grand total of 23 pressure sensors are needed for the system. These will be used to record the pressure at various points in the system. | |
The enthalpy sensors will be placed on the cooling towers to record the data of temperature and humidity. |
Updated P&ID
We created a P&ID to show the various sensors throughout the system. We showed the existing instrumentation as well as what we needed to add. Adding the instrumentation that was missing from the system allowed us to acquire that data we needed for our math model. |
EES Diagram
An EES was created to show all the the state points throughout the cycle. It also shows the plant tags of where the sensors are located throughout the system. |
Data Analysis
Throughout the system, the data collected from the sensors and ATS data acquisition devices was put into an excel file. Data from each instrument was put into individual files. Then we compiled the data into one excel file and implemented it into our EES math model. With the values received from our math model we then created plots to show the performance of the chiller under various operating conditions.
Performance Plot (Hot Day) | |
Performance Plot (Hot Day) | |
Performance Plot (Cold Day) | |
Performance Plot (Cold Day) |
Team Members
Alejandro Madrigal:
Major: BS in Mechanical Engineering
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Cliff Brewer:
Major: BS in Mechanical Engineering
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Rachal Skyving:
Major: BS in Mechanical Engineering
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Shelby West:
Major: BS in Mechanical Engineering
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