Central Air Conditioning Plants

The central air conditioning plants or the systems are used when large
buildings, hotels, theaters, airports, shopping malls etc are to be air conditioned
completely. The window and split air conditioners are used for single rooms or small
office spaces. If the whole building is to be cooled it is not economically viable to put
window or split air conditioner in each and every room. Further, these small units
cannot satisfactorily cool the large halls, auditoriums, receptions areas etc.

In the central air conditioning systems there is a plant room where large
compressor, condenser, thermostatic expansion valve and the evaporator are kept in
the large plant room. They perform all the functions as usual similar to a typical
refrigeration system. However, all these parts are larger in size and have higher
capacities. The compressor is of open reciprocating type with multiple cylinders and
is cooled by the water just like the automobile engine. The compressor and the
condenser are of shell and tube type. While in the small air conditioning system
capillary is used as the expansion valve, in the central air conditioning systems
thermostatic expansion valve is used.

The chilled is passed via the ducts to all the rooms, halls and other
spaces that are to be air conditioned. Thus in all the rooms there is only the duct
passing the chilled air and there are no individual cooling coils, and other parts of the
refrigeration system in the rooms. What is we get in each room is the completely
silent and highly effective air conditions system in the room. Further, the amount of
chilled air that is needed in the room can be controlled by the openings depending
on the total heat load inside the room.

The central air conditioning systems are highly sophisticated

applications of the air conditioning systems and many a times they tend to be
complicated. It is due to this reason that there are very few companies in the world
that specialize in these systems. In the modern era of computerization a number of
additional electronic utilities have been added to the central conditioning systems.

Introduction
There are two types of central air conditioning systems: Direct Expansion
(DX) type of central air condition plants and Chilled Water type of the central air
conditioning plants. In the DX system the air used for cooling the room or space is
directly passed over the cooling coil of the refrigeration plant. In case of the chilled
water system the refrigeration system is used to first chill the water, which is then
used to chill the air used for cooling the rooms or spaces.
Both these systems have been discussed in details; this article discusses DX
system, while the next one describes chilled water system.
Direct Expansion (DX) Type of Central Air Conditioning Plant
In the direct expansion or DX types of air central conditioning plants the air
used for cooling space is directly chilled by the refrigerant in the cooling coil of the air
handling unit. Since the air is cooled directly by the refrigerant the cooling efficiency
of the DX plants is higher. However, it is not always feasible to carry the refrigerant
piping to the large distances hence, direct expansion or the DX type of central air
conditioning system is usually used for cooling the small buildings or the rooms on
the single floor.
There are three main compartments of the DX type of central conditioning
systems (please refer the fig below):

1) The Plant Room:

The plant room comprises of the important parts of the refrigeration system,
the compressor and the condenser. The compressor can be either semi-hermetically
sealed or open type. The semi-hermetically sealed compressors are cooled by the
air, which is blown by the fan, while open type compressor is water cooled. The open
compressor can be driven directly by motor shaft by coupling or by the belt via pulley
arrangement.
The condenser is of shell and tube type and is cooled by the water. The
refrigerant flows along the tube side of the condenser and water along the shell side,
which enables faster cooling of the refrigerant. The water used for cooling the
compressor and the condenser is cooled in the cooling tower kept at the top of the
plant room, though it can be kept at other convenient location also.
2) The Air Handling Unit Room:
The refrigerant leaving the condenser in the plant room enters the thermostatic
expansion valve and then the air handling unit, which is kept in the separate room.
The air handling unit is a large box type of unit that comprises of the evaporator or
the cooling coil, air filter and the large blower. After leaving the thermostatic
expansion valve the refrigerant enters the cooling coil where it cools the air that
enters the room to be air conditioned. The evaporator in the air handling unit of the
DX central air conditioning system is of coil type covered with the fins to increasing
the heat transfer efficiency from the refrigerant to the air.
There are two types of ducts connected to the air handling unit: for absorbing
the hot return air from the rooms and for sending the chilled air to the rooms to be air
conditioned. The blower of the air handling unit enables absorbing the hot return air
that has absorbed the heat from the room via the ducts. This air is then passed
through the filters and then over the cooling coil. The blower then passes the chilled
air through ducts to the rooms that are to be air conditioned.
3) Air Conditioned Room:
This is the space that is to be actually cooled. It can be residential room, room
of the hotel, part of the office or any other suitable application. The ducts from the air
handling room are passed to all the rooms that are to be cooled. The ducts are
connected to the grills or diffusers that supply the chilled air to the room. The air
absorbs the heat and gets heated and it passes through another set of the grill and
into the return air duct that ends into the air handling unit room. This air is then re-
circulated by the air handling unit.
Though the efficiency of the DX plants is higher, the air handling units and the
refrigerant piping cannot be kept at very long distance since there will be lots of drop
in pressure of the refrigerant along the way and there will also be cooling losses.
Further, for the long piping, large amounts of refrigerant will be needed which makes
the system very expensive and also prone to the ma instance problems like the
leakage of the refrigerant.
Due to these reasons the DX type central air conditioning systems are used
for small air conditioning systems of about 5 to 15 tons in small buildings or the
number of rooms on a single floor. If there are large air conditioning loads, then
multiple direct expansion systems can be installed. In such cases, when there is
lesser heat load one of the plants can be shut down and the other can run at full
load. The DX expansion system runs more efficiently at higher loads. Even in case of
the breakdown of the plants, the other plants can be used for the cooling purpose.
The DX types of central air conditioning plants are less popular than the chilled water
type of central conditioning plants.
 Chilled Water Central Air Conditioning Plants
The chilled water types of central air conditioning plants are installed in the
place where whole large buildings, shopping mall, airport, hotel, etc, comprising of
several floors are to be air conditioned. While in the direct expansion type of central
air conditioning plants, refrigerant is directly used to cool the room air; in the chilled
water plants the refrigerant first chills the water, which in turn chills the room air.
In chilled water plants, the ordinary water or brine solution is chilled to very low
temperatures of about 6 to 8 degree Celsius by the refrigeration plant. This chilled
water is pumped to various floors of the building and its different parts. In each of
these parts the air handling units are installed, which comprise of the cooling coil,
blower and the ducts. The chilled water flows through the cooling coil. The blower
absorbs return air from the air conditioned rooms that are to be cooled via the ducts.
This air passes over the cooling coil and gets cooled and is then passed to the air
conditioned space.
Chilled Central Air Conditioners

Various Parts of the Chilled Water Air Conditioning Plant

All the important parts of the chilled water air conditioning plant are shown in
the above figure and described in detail below:
1) Central Air Conditioning Plant Room:
The plant room comprises of all the important components of the chilled water
air conditioning plant. These include the compressor, condenser, thermostatic
expansion valve and the evaporator or the chiller. The compressor is of open type
and can be driven by the motor directly or by the belt via pulley arrangement
connected to the motor. It is cooled by the water just like the automotive engine.
The condenser and the evaporator are of shell and tube type. The condenser is
cooled by the water, with water flowing along the shell side and refrigerant along the
tube side.The thermostatic expansion valve is operated automatically by the solenoid
valve.
The evaporator is also called as the chiller, because it chills the water. If the
water flows along the shell side and refrigerant on the tube side, it is called as the
dry expansion type of chiller. If the water flows along tube side and the refrigerant
along the shell side, it is called as the flooded chiller. The water chilled in the chiller
is pumped to various parts of the building that are to be air conditioned. It enters the
air handling unit, cools the air in cooling coil, absorbs the heat and returns back to
the plant room to get chilled again. The amount of water passing into the chiller is
controlled by the flow switch.
In the central air conditioning plant room all the components, the compressor,
condenser, thermostatic expansion valve, and the chiller are assembled in the
structural steel framework making a complete compact refrigeration plant, known as
the chiller package. Piping required to connect these parts is also enclosed in this
unit making a highly compact central air conditioning plant.
2) Air Handling Unit Rooms:
The air handling units are installed in the various parts of the building that are
to be air conditioned, in the place called air handling unit rooms. The air handling
units comprise of the cooling coil, air filter, the blower and the supply and return air
ducts. The chilled water flows through the cooling coil. The blower absorbs the return
hot air from the air conditioned space and blows it over the cooling coil thus cooling
the air. This cooled air passes over the air filter and is passed by the supply air ducts
into the space which is to be air conditioned. The air handling unit and the ducts
passing through it are insulated to reduce the loss of the cooling effect.
3) Air Conditioned Rooms:
These are the rooms or spaces that are to be air conditioned. These can be
residential or hotel rooms, halls, shops, offices, complete theater, various parts of the
airport etc. At the top of these rooms the supply and the return air ducts are laid. The
supply air ducts supply the cool air to the room via one set of the diffusers, while the
return air ducts absorbs the hot return air from the room by another set of the
diffusers. The hot return air enters the air handling unit, gets cooled and again enters
the room via supply duct to produce air conditioning effect.
4) Cooling Tower:
The cooling tower is used to cool the water that absorbs heat from the compressor
and the condenser. When water flows through these components some water gets
evaporated, to make up this loss some water is also added in the cooling tower. The
cooling tower is of evaporative type. Here the water is cooled by the atmospheric air
and is re-circulated through the compressor and the condenser.

Comparison between dx and chilled water ACS:

Introduction
The Direct Expansion (DX) and Chilled Water central air conditioning plants
are both used at different places depending on the applications and size of the place
to be air conditioned. Both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Let us see the comparison of DX and chilled water central air conditioning plants.
1) DX Central Air Conditioning Plants are more Efficient
In the DX type of central air conditioning plants the air used for cooling the
room is directly chilled by the refrigerant in the cooling coil of the air handling unit.
Due to this heat transfer process is more efficient, since there is no middle agency
involved for the heat transfer resulting in higher cooling efficiency.
In case of the chilled water system, the cooling effect from the refrigerant is first
transferred to the chilled water, which is then used to chill the air used for cooling the
room. There is some loss of the cooling effect when it is being transferred from the
refrigerant to the chilled water and from there to the air due to which the chilled water
systems have lesser cooling efficiency. The chilled water acts as the secondary
medium for cooling the room air in air handling unit.
Further, the chilled water has to flow long distance along the whole building.
On its way it tends to get heated due to friction of flow and also due to surrounding
heat absorption. The chilled water also has to be pumped by the pump, which adds
more heat to it. Thus as the chilled water flows from the chiller to the air handling unit
and again back to the chiller, apart from the heat from air, it also absorbs lots of
additional heat, which leads to high increase in its temperature. The chiller has to
remove this additional heat from the water due to which its efficiency decreases or
rather additional power is required to remove this additional heat. In the DX type of
central air conditioning plants the refrigerant travels only through the small distances
and there is no pump involved so the additional heat absorption is less, which makes
the DX plants even more efficient.
2) The Chilled Water Plants can be used for the Large Multi Storey Buildings
In the direct expansion types of the central air conditioning plant, the
refrigerant like R22 flows through the whole air conditioning system including the air
handling unit. When the refrigerant flows in the refrigeration piping there is lots of
drop in its pressure. Due to this the length of the refrigeration tubing and the distance
between the condenser and the air handling unit should be kept minimum possible.
If the air handling unit is kept at the height more than the condenser, the loss in
pressure is pronounced since refrigerant travelling from the condenser to the air
handling unit is in liquid state. As the distance between the air handling unit and the
condenser increases the loss in pressure also increases. At certain point the losses
may be so high that the refrigerant may not be able to reach the air handling unit,
leading to complete failure of the system. At the larger height difference there is also
oil return problem from the refrigerant to the compressor.
Due to these reasons, in direct expansion type of the central air conditioning
plant there is limitation on the distance between the condenser and the air handling
unit. The distance between the two cannot be too high. This limits the application of
the direct expansion type of central air conditioning systems to the small buildings or
a number of rooms on the single floor. In such cases the plant room and air handling
room and the rooms to be cooled are located on the same floor. The height
difference between the condenser and the air handling units has to be quite
reasonable so that they can function well.
One of the solutions to increase the capacity of the DX systems can be to increase
the number of air handling units on upper floors. But with this will be additional
number of joints in the refrigerant tubing from which there will be higher chances of
leakage of highly expensive refrigerant. This leads to too many operational and
maintenance problems.
One may think that we can employ compressor of very high capacity to
increase the refrigerant pressure, but this will lead to highly excessive capital and
running costs of the plant. This is because we will have to install the compressor of
capacity much higher than needed.
Thus the direct expansion types of the air conditioning plants can be used only for
smaller buildings or various rooms on the same floor.
There are no pressure loss problems in the chilled water system. In this system
chilled water is pumped by the pump at very high pressure, which is good enough to
carry it to various floors of the multi storey building. The losses in the pressure of
water are accommodated by the sufficient capacity of the pump, which has low
capital and running cost. Further, the water doesn’t carry any oil so there are no oil
return problems.
 In case of the chilled water system the compressor, condenser,
expansion valve and the chiller are all kept at the same level in the single plant room.
There is no problem as such of the height difference between the condenser and the
air handling unit since the refrigerant does not travels to the air handling unit. The
flow of the refrigerant is limited to the chiller plant. The water chilled in the chilled
flows to the various air handling units kept on different floors of the building. The
whole arrangement and the structure of the chilled water type of central air
conditioning plant makes it more suitable for cooling the large multi storey buildings
and even for very long distances along the same floor level. This makes the chilled
water central air conditioners more popular than the direct expansion type ones.

IMPORTANT :

To operate and maintain central air conditioning systems you need to have
good operators, technicians and engineers. Proper preventative and breakdown
maintenance of these plants is vital.