Processing, October 2016
or food and beverage processing facilities the industrial refrigeration system is key to operations It can also be the key investment and factor in a facilitys operational efficiency and ongoing costs for maintenance and energy use Being environmentally responsible is becoming more important for industries across the board and in recent years the field of industrial refrigeration engineering has seen an array of advances in more efficient equipment and more sustainable refrigerants However in much of the industry engineering practices that have been the industry standard for years are slowing the adoption and use of these new technologies By employing older typical engineering approaches in the design of new systems production facilities are not only unnecessarily wasting energy and resources which also impacts the environment but these businesses that rely on refrigeration are wasting their cold hard cash The potential to save energy resources and significant amounts of money requires more than simply using new technologies It requires an entirely new approach to engineering the whole system with which a facility operates not just the refrigeration system and components themselves Engineering opportunity True innovation in improving refrigeration systems making them more efficient sustainable and costeffective involves multiple factors Of course engineers need to know the baseline requirements that the facility must meet and account for the typical local environmental seasonal conditions However a key to innovating a new approach lies in changing how refrigeration system engineers fundamentally think about designing their systems Rather than viewing the job as designing and installing systems to refrigerate an industrial space it is helpful to instead view the challenge as removing heat from the building to cool it In this article well also refer to energy heat coming into the I n d u s t r i a l r e f r i g e r at i o n 34 Processing OCTOBER 2016 F Cover Series Food Beverage INNOVATIONS A new approach to engineering these systems yields energy and financial savings By Steve Jackson PermaCold Engineering Inc Table 1 Assumptions for refrigeration case study Assumptions Freezer System Dock System Baseline Efficient Baseline Efficient Floor Area sqft 49450 10750 Temperature Inside F Relative Humidity 10 F 90 35 F 50 Ambient Temp F Relative Humidity 90 F 50 Floor Temp F 50 F 50 F Outdoor Humidity 50 50 R Value Wall R32 R42 R32 R32 R Value Ceiling R32 R42 R32 R32 R Value Floor R32 R42 R5 R10 Product Load Lbs day Temp In F 500000 10 F 100000 45 F People Inside Room 1 2 Hours People Are Inside Room 3 8 Hours Fork Lift Is In One Room 3 8 QTY HP of Fork Lift 1 10 hp 2 10 hp Type of Light Flourescent LED Flourescent LED QTY Size of Doors 2 12 X 10 2 12 X 10 4 8 X 10 4 8 X 10 of Door Openings 75 75 100 100 Door Open Close Time Per Door Opening 30 sec 20 sec 30 sec 20 sec Door Fully Open Time Per Door 30 min 15 min 30 min 15 min
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