Jean-Christophe CaretteManager, TA Hydronic College

Total hydronic balancing(mini seminar experience)

HVAC businessProviding a desired indoor climate …

requires permanent heating or cooling outputs to compensate for the building heat losses or gains.

Hydronic heating/cooling

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Flow• Flow and water temperature must be ensured as calculated by the design engineer to be able to obtain the target indoor climate.

A water flow is supplied at a given temperature to a terminal unit that exchanges heat with the room

• Hydronic heating/cooling always based on the same principle:

Obtaining the flows

How to obtain the design f low in each terminal unit?

• Pump provides a differential pressure.• Water flows establish themselves as a function of the relativehydraulic resistances of pipe branches with respect to each other.

The balancing valve idea

Differential pressure Differential pressure controllerscontrollers

Self-acting valves performing dynamic

balancing

Balancing Balancing valvesvalves

Adjustable resistance with measuring possibilities

Idea: Adjust the local hydraulic resistances so as to obtain the required flows

Finding the right balancing solution

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Requires specif ic methodology and know -how

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From the design engineer drawing

To a hierarchical hydronic structure

Growing project complexityProjects grow in size, with increasing demands and raising energy-efficiency constraints

Design engineers and contractors need more support than ever with dedicated know-how and software

The importance of measuring"When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind."

Lord Kelvin, 1883(Defined the absolute temperature scale in 1847)

The energy-efficient hydronic engineer's best friends

Savings are real

Pfizer pharmaceutical production unit in Amboise (France)

• Installed cooling capacity of 5.4 MW (3 chillers in cascade)

• Total design flow: 773 m³/h = 215 l/s

Problem:Alarms due to excessive temperature leading to expensive production outages !

Solution: 80 TA balancing valves from DN 15 to DN 200.Balancing performed by TA with the exclusive and protected TA-Balance method.

Savings are real

773 m³/h=215 l/s (-13%)No production alarms!

AfterbalancingIndustrial plant

5,4 MW cooling capacity889 m³/h=247 l/s335 kPa pump head

Bonus:270 kPa pump head (-20%)Pumping power reduction : 39 kWSavings : 31% reduction in pumping costs

Beforebalancing

System offer : valves, instruments and software

Summary

• To obtain the target indoor climate, design flows must be obtained in all terminal units in design conditions.

• Systematic balancing methodology involving balancing valves and differential pressure controllers achieves this.

• The test-points on each valve, the balancing instrument and software are essential diagnostic tools that also allow the most energy-efficient flow circulation solution to be achieved.