Fluid Flow's hydraulic solution
October 2013
Pneumatics & Hydraulics
Fluid Flow Contracting installed an adiabatic cooler at Saldanha Steel in October 2012. Saldanha Steel’s hydraulic system had developed an overheating problem and Fluid Flow was given the opportunity to solve this problem and get the system running at a constant 45°C, irrespective of the ambient temperature in the area. Fluid Flow found that the existing air blast heat exchangers were inefficient and these were replaced with the adiabatic system. It required two months of R&D to design the system and to modify the finned-tube heat exchangers on the adiabatic cooler in order to handle hydraulic oil in place of water or glycol.
Adiabatic coolers cool water on air conditioning systems and basically replace cooling towers. These heat rejection systems extract energy from air by evaporating the water running through the evaporative media. Since no external energy is provided for this process, the result is a reduction in the air temperature, and this cools the hydraulic oil passing through the finned-tube heat exchanger.
The unit installed by Fluid Flow is fully PLC controlled, with three fans controlled by temperature changes in both the hydraulic oil and the ambient air. Each fan has built-in drives and uses only 2,6 kW per drive. Water usage is 680 litres per hour. The design and operation of the unit minimises water consumption and impact on the environment. Legionella risk is reduced to a negligible level through a combination of factors: low precool water temperature; daily water dump and dry out cycle; and low air velocity over the highly efficient evaporative cooling pads to prevent moisture carry-over. The system has proved to be 80% more efficient than any other form of heat exchange.
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