Built in redundancy and energy efficiency are often key factors for clients when they’re considering upgrading their cooling equipment. This was exactly the case for a client who wanted to replace an aging air-cooled chiller system which provided hydraulic oil cooling to their manufacturing process.

Our customer is a market leading manufacturer of home appliances, including a range of washing machines and tumble dryers. In addition to being old, their existing chillers ran on R407C refrigerant, which limited their energy efficiency potential.

During the manufacturing process, our client uses a cold press to produce component parts. In very basic terms, a sheet of metal is inserted between two metal plates. A hydraulic system then creates a sheer force which presses the required shape into the metal sheet.

Our in-house design team removed 3 chiller units from the existing cooling system, replacing them with a single adiabatic cooler. One larger chiller unit was retained as a back up option. Moving to an adiabatic system meant the required cooling capacity could be achieved without the need for a refrigeration system. As well as decreasing electrical power consumption, this has the added benefit of removing moving mechanical parts, so reducing running cost and future maintenance costs.

A shell and tube heat exchanger was also included, taking the hydraulic oil one side and cooling fluid on the other.

The adiabatic cooler supplied had 5 fans, so if 1 should ever fail, the cooling function would continue unaffected. The fans can also be replaced whilst the unit is operational, so you gain built in redundancy.

The full solution included:

• 250kW adiabatic cooler with EC fans
• Shell & tube heat exchanger
• Process pumps, inverters and pressurisation unit
• Mechanical installation, pipework and commissioning

“This project is a great example of how a relatively simple system upgrade can achieve a multitude of benefits for clients. For this customer their total cost of ownership really reduced, and they gained peace of mind that their process now incorporated redundancy on the cooling side” explains Aqua Sales Manager, Shaun Lancaster.

Our design team are used to overcoming access restrictions on sites but an extremely narrow passageway and overhead cabling on a recent project posed a real challenge.

The client, a leading manufacturer and distributor of automotive components, tasked us with replacing an old, failing adiabatic cooler. Removing a legacy unit and replacing it with new equipment is relatively straight forwarded most of the time – but on this occasion things were going to be trickier! A narrow walkway restricted access and overhead electrical and telecommunication cables ran above the site’s fencing, meaning using a traditional HiAB lift wasn’t going to be an option.

Whilst our client wanted a like for like replacement, our engineers used the initial design phase as a chance to reduce the dimensions of the new adiabatic cooler, giving more room for manoeuvre – quite literally! Whilst the new unit could achieve the same duty as the existing, our design team managed to make it significantly smaller in size.

Aqua supplied a 500+kW adiabatic, working on a water supply temperature of 30+°C, with a return temperature of 43.4°C, with a wet bulb of 19°C. Fluid was 25% ethylene glycol/water. By changing the configuration of the unit’s fans, the footprint was considerably reduced.

Whilst replacing the old adiabatic with the new unit wasn’t easy, positioning and installation was made much easier by the unit’s reduced dimensions. It also made navigating the restricted access ways a more straightforward task.

The full Aqua solution included:

• 505kW adiabatic cooler
• Bespoke design service
• Mechanical disconnection & disposal of the legacy cooler
• Full delivery and installation
• Hoses and related ancillaries

“This installation is a great example of how important the initial design phase can be” explains Aqua Sales Engineer, Bhaskar Choudhury. “Once we visited site the access and delivery restrictions became clear and the work our design team then did at that early stage made life so much simpler when it came to the final install, saving our client both time and cost.”

A state of the art Adiabatic Cooling system has helped to expand and transform alloy wheel production for one of the UK’s largest alloy wheel suppliers.

Based in the Midlands, our client designs and manufactures the wheels which are then supplied to the automotive market worldwide. They have worked with several the market leading vehicle brands and supply the motorsport sector.

Aqua supplied two Adiabatic Cooling systems, one of the key design benefits of the system was the ability to precisely control the exact amount of Adiabatic spray required by the process, reducing water loss and making subsequent savings on water consumption. Energy savings and overall efficiency are a real focus of the system, which is further enhanced by incorporating inverter pumps and EC fans.

One Adiabatic unit has been installed on the factory’s hydraulic press line and provides cooling for the quench tank. The second is on the diecasting line, cooling the process after the raw material has been injected into a mould under high temperature. Previously the line operated with air cooled tooling, but this was upgraded to a water-cooled system as part of the ongoing expansion programme.

Sales Director, Simon Davis, explains; “Aqua were initially approached because the client’s original supplier had miscalculated the cooling requirement of the production process, resulting in the wrong equipment arriving at site. We were asked to visit site, re-specify the equipment and supplied and installed the complete system. Since the initial installation Aqua have won a second contract for further work which I hope is testament not only to our product offering but also our customer service.”

The solution included:

• 400kW and 700kW adiabatic coolers
• Inverter pumps
• DC driven adiabatic spray pumps
• EC fans
• Energy saving system design

With their new Cooling system in full operation, our client is now well placed to continue their ongoing strategy to be the major driving force in alloy wheel production across the globe.