Case Study: Cleanroom Cooling
LocationUK
Value£800k
Point of interestCleanroom Cooling
This laboratory contains over 400 furnaces, each subjecting various metal alloys to extreme stress and high temperatures. For the tests to be validated, the room temperature should be maintained within +/- 1oC for 24 hours/day 365 days/year.
The laboratory was serviced from an ageing, inefficient dual-duct system, and the plant had become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain.
The existing system, which was over 40 years old, had to remain operational throughout the installation of the new system. This was because some metal alloy tests were over a 2 year period, and it was impossible to create a shutdown “window.”
Our challenge, therefore, was to design a system to meet the close temperature tolerance, but without access to the existing supply and return plenums, and also to build in sufficient plant redundancy demanded for such a business critical environment.
This we achieved over an 18 week design, installation and testing period.
The added benefit to the client was that, after a 3 month comparison period, a 41% reduction in power consumption was recorded compared with the same period the previous year with the old dual duct system.
When adding the saving in maintenance and repair cost into the equation, the project represented a 2 year pay-back on the project capital investment.
