Heating & Cooling Unit Applications

This was designed to service two objects (for reasons of proprietary protection, specifics and technical specifications cannot be given), Object A and Object B. Both objects have electrical circuits or other devices within the assembly that generate heat and when the assembly is complete, it will feature its own heat removal system.  However, this particular customer needs to use these heat generating devices before the proprietary device can be brought on line. That is where our cooling skid comes in.

Objects A and B are being constructed and the devices that are generating heat are in different phases of their development / installation so they may not be generating equal amounts of heat. The cooling skid takes in sea water, powered by an offboard pump, and circulates the sea water through three different heat exchangers at the same time. The sea water is put through three heat exchangers to get less pressure loss per gallon.

Heat exchangers can be viewed as both the start and ending point for this "circuit."  These heat exchangers are designed to accept cold or hot liquids which don't always have to be water (i.e. cold liquid for cooling applications and hot liquids for heating),  and keep them apart from the liquid trying to be cooled or heated.  While the liquid is run through the heat exchanger, the surfaces exposed to the liquids are cooled or heated, and that new cold or hot temperature heats or cools the liquid on the other side.  Therefore, the name is quite adept in that it transfers heat energy from one fluid to another. In the scenario detailed herein, water stored in our pipe lines was being taken and run through the heat exchangers to cool them.

Once the appropriate temperature has been reached, the liquid is pumped up to the device.  However, both pressure and flow has to be controlled while this is happening in addition to the need to remove any contaminants within the fluid. This is accomplished with a fairly extensive array of throttling valves, transducers, expansion tanks, and variable speed drives.  The graphic below helps to visually explain the process:

• The three blue elements are the heat exchangers
• The three cylindrical elements with the black caps are the pumps
  
• The big cabinet to the right is the electrical control enclosures which house all the drives and electrical components
  
• All the other elements are piping and valves

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