Watercooled Chillers

Watercooled Chillers - Maintenance and Cleaning

(Water-cooled) chiller systems are often the number 1 energy consumer in a building. This makes it extremely important to keep a close eye on the efficiency of these systems. Even with a small amount of contamination in the condenser/evaporator, the efficiency can decrease and result in thousands of euros in extra electricity costs per year!

Both the evaporator and condenser have an internal tube bundle that needs periodic cleaning. Especially the tubes at the condenser get polluted the fastest. When the tubes are contaminated, the heat transfer efficiency will quickly decrease. As a result, the entire chiller system will become increasingly inefficient.

During use, the condensers can become contaminated over time by different types of pollution, such as:

• Calcium carbonate deposits
• Macrofouling such as; Algae, Mussels etc.
• Microfouling such as; sand and mud. (sedimentation)
• Biofilm
• Corrosion

Rotating Cleaning with Brushes

Mechanical brushing of (inner)tube bundles is one of the most commonly chosen methods for cleaning heat exchangers, chillers and more. The concept is simple, a machine drives a flexible shaft, which in turn rotates a brush. The rotating action of the brush keeps continuous friction on the tube and will quickly loosen the deposits on the inner tube wall. In combination with a water flush, the contamination is also directly flushed away.