Technology

A total of 1,875 exhibitors spread across 527,520 square feet, and 120 free educational sessions drew 48,034 total attendees. Driven by decarbonization and green transition megatrends, this event highlighted the global refrigerant transition; adoption of heat pumps; integration of building automation systems and AI; and optimization of the energy/water nexus in applied equipment. This article recaps the response and innovation from manufacturers of chillers, cooling towers and related equipment.  

Back in the 1980’s, when most female high school students may have been dreaming of becoming a teacher, a nurse or other more traditional ‘female’ roles, Angela Sherman had her heart set on becoming a sales engineer and running her own business.

The 2024 Cooling Technology Institute (CTI) Annual Conference for manufacturers, owner-operators, and suppliers of heat rejection equipment (i.e., cooling towers, adiabatic coolers and dry coolers) was held Feb. 4 – 8 at the Westin Galleria in Houston, TX. This article will share some updates to CTI standards and acceptance test codes, synopsize the event’s educational curriculum, share perspective, and highlight products and services offered by a sampling of firms at the event’s trade show. 

The AIM (American Innovation and Manufacturing) Act was finalized by the US government at the end of 2021. This legislation introduced a phase-down plan for virgin HFC gases. From now through 2036, the US will reduce the production and importation of virgin HFCs by granting relevant businesses a set number of HFC allowances (or quota), which will decrease over time. 

Process cooling systems are mandatory components of the production infrastructure in many plants. System efficiency is second only to operational performance (i.e. meeting the process requirements) in the design and operation of these systems, and many companies go to great lengths to attain system efficiency.  Many times, unfortunately, the actual system performance is well below the hoped for efficiency target.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) started moving down the pump efficiency path when it began regulating certain commercial and industrial pumps in 2020. This effectively removed the least-energy-efficient pumps from the market—about 25 percent of the total. It is a good start, but real change will not be achieved unless we start replacing the installed base with more efficient pumps. The state revolving fund (SRF) programs have a green set-aside of 10 percent of their funds that must be spent on carbon-reduction initiatives. Most facilities have already identified the bad actors—equipment that often breaks down or requires maintenance.

How do you replace aging cooling towers without risking disruption to a plant's continuous high-volume operation? That was the challenge at a major Midwest automotive manufacturing facility. In 1998, SUVs and minivans began rolling off the production line at the 4.5 million-square-foot facility (roughly 80 football fields under one roof), and the existing cooling towers were due to be replaced. 

In late October 2023, professionals from around the world gathered at the Best Practices 2023 EXPO & Conference at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois to source and learn about Sustainble, Safe and Reliable On-Site Utilities Powering Automation including chillers, cooling towers, motors, compressed air, blowers, vacuum, pneumatics and more.

In October of 2023, eight hundred sales professionals from forty-one countries attended the EVAPCO Global Sales Conference in Baltimore, MD. Under the theme “Full Spectrum Evolution,” EVAPCO celebrated the talent of its global sales network, and the evolution of its full spectrum of heat transfer solutions. This article will recount the event functions and share new developments unveiled at the EVAPCO Global Sales Conference, the first since 2017. 

This article will discuss the instrumentation typically found in cooling systems and other plant utility systems, what other instruments and gauges should be used, how the instrumentation should be used, and good maintenance practices for instrumentation.