The following article was published in ASHRAE Journal, February 2005.

Copyright 2005 American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. It is presented for educational purposes only. This article may not be copied and/or distributed electronically or in paper form without permission of ASHRAE.

Simplifying Contemporary HVAC Piping

By James B. (Burt) Rishel, P Fellow/Life Member ASHRAE .E.,

he advent of digital control and variable speed pumping has decreased the amount of equipment needed to control water

ow in chilled and hot water distribution systems. This applies to most hot and chilled water systems that have variable heating and cooling loads. Gone are balance valves, multiple duty valves, primary/secondary separators or expansion tanks. All of pumping, cross-over bridges and other energy-consuming piping ac- all gures.
these items are substantially the same in Let us start with a simple, single zone

cessories. Almost all that is left are the pumps, piping, isolation valves, chilled water system that would have had and coils with control valves. Adaptive control provides a continually adjusting program that completely eliminates manual operation.
Without manual adjustment, balance valves and multiple duty valves are no longer needed. Also, precise control of pump speed has proved that piping arrangements used to control pump ow and pressure are unnecessary. What is
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left are variable speed pumps and coil control valves that provide the pressures and ows required in any part of a water system under all load conditions. In the following gures, the manual isolation valves are not shown nor are the air
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constant speed pumps with total manual adjustment, Figure 1. This was the conguration regardless of any cooling load variation on it. Figure 1 was a ne system circa 1960, before the days of affordable variable frequency drives. If you have
About the Author James B. (Burt) Rishel, P is owner of Pumping .E., Solutions, Cincinnati.

February 2005

Gone are balance valves, multiple duty valves, primary/secondary pumping, cross-over bridges and other energy-consuming piping accessories. Almost all that is left are the pumps, piping, isolation valves, and coils with control valves.
ing began around 1994. Initially, chiller manufacturers had to be conservative with the allowable minimum ow. It was generally limited to a minimum evaporator tube velocity of 3 fps (0.9 m/s). Today, some chiller manufacturers have reduced this limit to as low as 1.5 fps (0.5 m/s) at part load on the chiller. Ultimately, it is believed that this acceptable minimum ow question will be solved by the chiller manufacturers themselves by equipping each chiller with an integral circulator and reducing the minimum ow requirement through improved refrigerant control. Due to this variation in minimum tube velocity requirement for different chiller manufacturers, it is imperative that each project have the minimum ow veried to ensure compliance with the chiller manufacturers requirements. Many HVAC systems are much more complicated than the simple system of Figures 1 and 2. Figure 3 describes a traditional primary/secondary, constant flow, chilled water system with four zones. It has constant speed pumps with totally manual adjustment. All of the pumps would have been equipped with balance valves and check valves as well as isolation valves. The cross-over bridges would have had return control valves that decoupled the secondary and tertiary (zone) pumps. It is apparent that considerable energy waste will be in this manually balanced system if it were applied to a variable load application. The energy losses would be appreciable in the cross-over bridge valves in the building zones. If the zones are far apart, much of the energy of the secondary pumps is lost in the zone valves for the zones near the chiller plant. Along with the energy loss through the bridge/return valves, the balance valves on all of the pumps and cooling coils typically would be throttled, resulting in energy waste. This indicates that great energy waste occurs if we try to t a constant speed system to a variable load installation. Conversions of constant speed systems to variable speed applications without the need for manual balancing have resulted in signicant energy savings for the variable ow system. This was demonstrated in the retrot of a hotel in Southern California.1 In this case, the cooling production and distribution equipment was downsized from
ASHRAE Journal 17

a constant load, such as in a computer center with no external exposure, it is still worth consideration. Today, this system with variable ow would most likely have only variable primary pumps with no balancing whatsoever ( (Figure 2). The coil control valves would be of a quality that would prevent overow of any coil, regardless of its position in the water system. Hundreds of systems such as this are in operation. No need exists to control the ow of the pumps manually, since the pump speed control can be set for any desirable maximum speed. The advent of variable primary pumpFebruary 2005

Coils Coils Chiller Chiller Chiller Balance Valve ThreeWay Valve Chiller FT

DP

Balance Valve Check Valve Constant Speed Pumps

Check Valve C Variable Speed Pumps Minimum Chiller Flow Control Two-Way Valve

Figure 1: Constant ow system.

Figure 2: Contemporary variable ow system.

the original chiller plant, and it dened Coils Balance Valve Coils Balance Valve Coils Balance Valve Coils Balance Valve the ability to reduce the capacity of ThreeThreeThreeWay Way Way the pumping equipment, chillers, and Valve Valve Valves cooling towers when changing to variable ow. After conversion to variable primary pumping using a smaller chiller plant, the author of the article that described the project stated: the data show that the VPF [variable primary Balance Valve Zone Pumps, Constant Speed ow] chiller plant saved approximately Check Valve Bridge 68% of the pre-retrofit base energy consumption. Bridge/Return Several contemporary procedures Control Valves exist for pumping a four-zone system Check Valve Balance Valve such as that shown in Figure 3. The distance between the zones is used to determine the best procedure for pumping this system. If the loads are close together in one building, only one set Secondary Pumps, of pumps is required (Figure 4). This ( Constant Speed Primary Pumps, Constant Speed represents a typical variable primary pumping system. The short distance Figure 3: Constant ow four-zone system. to the farthest load does not impose a high distribution piping system friction on the load nearest to is saved whenever a pumping system is eliminated. Quality the chiller plant. If each zone is a building and a considerable design limits this loss to 8 ft (24 kPa) while poor designs will distance exists between the buildings, distributed pumping reveal losses as high as 14 ft (42 kPa) or more of pump head. should be considered to avoid excessive pump head in the In this case, variable primary pumping would, therefore, save as nearby buildings (Figure 5). ( much as 16 to 28 ft (48 to 84 kPa) of pump head by eliminating The only chilled water pumps required in the chiller plant secondary and tertiary pumping installations. itself are the minimum ow circulators required to protect the Minimum flow circulators have a relatively low motor chillers. This situation requires the use of an automatically horsepower requirement. Assume that a chiller plant has 2,000 controlled isolation valve on each chiller return piping to stop ton (7034 kW) chillers, each with a design ow of 4,000 gpm ow in that chiller when it is not supplying cooling to the chilled (252 L/s). Additionally, assume that the chiller evaporators water system. Without these isolation valves, uncooled water were selected at 7 fps (2 m/s) with a minimum allowable ow would pass through an inoperable chiller and mix with cooled at part-load operation of 1.5 fps (0.45). The minimum ow water from operating chillers. This would elevate the supply would be 1.5/7 of 4,000 gpm or 860 gpm (252 L/s or 544 L/s). water temperature above the desired temperature. If the friction loss through the evaporator were 21 ft at 4,000 A friction loss of 8 to 14 ft (24 to 42 kPa) or more through gpm (63 kPa at 252 L/s), the design head for the minimum ow pump ttings such as suction strainers, check valves, suction pumps would be (1.5/7)2 21 or 1 ft (3 kPa) plus the piping and reducers, discharge increasers, isolation valves and piping pump tting loss.
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Assume the piping and tting loss to Two-Way Valves Coils be 16 ft (48 kPa), so the design head for DP DP DP DP the minimum ow pumps would be 17 ft (51 kPa). If the pumps have an efciency of 80%, the brake horsepower would be 4.6 hp (3.4 kW) and the pumps would be equipped with 5 hp (3.7 kW) motors. The pumps would be variable speed, so the actual energy consumption would be quite low. Since the loss through the evaporator is so low that it may not be represented by a smooth curve, it should Flow be veried by the chiller manufacturer. Transmitter FT Control of these circulators should be accomplished either by a chiller plant ow control as shown in Figure 5, or it can be by differential pressure transmitters connected across the chiller Pump Control Bypass Valve evaporators (Figure 6). For Minimum Flow C Recognizing the inefciency of many Variable Speed Pumps existing chilled water systems, it is possible to retrot a constant ow system Figure 4: Variable primary system (four zones in one building). of Figure 3 into a more efcient system through the use of the existing pumps Coils Two-Way Valves and piping (Figure 7). DP DP DP DP All of the pumps would be converted to variable speed. The minimum flow through the chillers would be controlled by a new bypass valve. The speed of the chiller pumps Building Pumps, would be controlled by a new differential Variable Speed Pump pressure transmitter, DP1, whose setting C C C C Control would be determined by the controller for all of the pumps. Flow The secondar y pumps would FT Transmitter be controlled by the differential transCirculator Control C mitter, DP2, at the far end of the chilled Low Head water loop. Circulators This would cost less than changing the pumps and piping to a variable primary Automatic Isolation Valves pumping system shown in Figure 4. However, a consulting engineer could make a careful evaluation to determine Figure 5: Distributed pumping system for four separate buildings. if it is economically feasible to downsize the pumps, chillers, there is adequate pressure provided by the secondary pumps, and cooling towers as in the previously mentioned article. this will be indicated by a rise in the differential pressure at The tertiary pumps in the buildings would be controlled the building differential pressure transmitters, DP 2. After by differential pressure transmitters, DP2, at the correct lo- a time delay, the building pumps would be stopped and cation in each building, possibly at the top of each zone as the building differential pressure transmitters would control shown. A bypass check valve would be located around each the secondary pumps. Likewise, when the building load of the building pumps, and the return valves with all of their increases and the building pumps are needed, they will energy waste would be eliminated. Under light load, when restart automatically. All of these piping and control proceChillers Chillers

Minimum Chiller Flow Control Valve

DP2 DP2

Coils
DP2

Two-Way Valves
DP2

Chiller

Chiller

DP

DP

Variable Speed Check Valve

C C

New Bypass Valve Chillers

Zone Pumps Check Valve

Pump Control

Bypass Check Valve

DP2

Variable Speed Pumps

Secondary Pump Control

C
DP1

Figure 6: Use of chiller DP transmitter for minimum ow control.

dures are in operation on many chilled Primary Primary Pumps, Pump Variable Speed water systems. Control A number of the gures in this article illustrate the use of differential pressure Figure 7: Conversion of a constant ow system to variable ow. transmitters as the means of controlling pump speed. So far, this is a proven method during the past 25 All of the previous gures show the chillers and their pumps years. Contemporary digital electronics indicate the possibility assembled in tandem. It may be more economical to provide of mass ow as a means of pump speed control. Unfortunately, these pumps headered as shown in Figure 8. This could provide this procedure also requires physical location of each individual better programming of the pumps and offer the opportunity to cooling load because friction to a specic load is determined overow the evaporators in event of low chilled water return by the distance of that load from the pumping system. The temperatures. Recognizing that chiller output is ow times the total calculation then becomes quite complicated. So far, the differential temperature, the chiller output can be sustained by author has not seen total pump control software that recognizes increasing the ow during the existence of reduced differenthis fact. tial temperatures. This has become common due to the many Another explanation should be made concerning the piping instances of low return temperatures in chilled water systems. diagrams in this article. All of the gures describe equal fric- All chillers have a maximum allowable velocity such as 10 fps tion losses in the supply and return mains. Such is not always (3 m/s) in the evaporator. The chiller manufacturer should be the case on large systems. Often, the return piping has different consulted before overow is attempted. circuiting and, therefore, unequal friction losses. The return ASHRAE recognizes that the parasitic load of pumps and piping should be evaluated as carefully as the supply piping. cooling towers may equal or exceed the energy consumption One advantage of using cross-over bridges and tertiary of the chillers themselves at light loads. Efforts are being made pumps is the ability to blend warm return water with cold to develop a guideline to help determine the total energy consupply water to operate the zones at higher temperatures than sumption of a chiller plant, not just the kW/ton of the chillers those developed in the chiller plant. With the quality of todays themselves. piping insulation, however, little need exists for such blending. Another signicant improvement in HVAC water-distribution If a research or process facility requires colder chilled water, systems is the realization that the quality of coil control valves it is usually better to provide a booster chiller for that facility must be such that they will withstand the broad differential rather than absorb the energy penalty produced by generating pressures that have always existed in these systems. In the past, the entire cooling load at a reduced temperature. For example, many of these coil valves were of a commercial grade that could if a research facility requires 40F (4F) chilled water, the not withstand the differential pressures imposed upon them. booster chiller could reduce the 45F (7F) distribution water Today, the use of industrial quality valves as well as pressure temperature. Obviously, this is an engineering design problem independent valves has improved the differential temperature requiring evaluation for each specic case. and dramatically reduced the ow in these systems. This mat-

Secondary Pumps, Variable Speed

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FT Chiller Chiller

Minimum Chiller Flow Control Valve

Water Source Heat Pumps Balance Valve Check Valve Distribution Pumps, Constant Speed

Chiller Isolation Valves Header Check Valve Variable Speed Pumps Balance Valve Check Valve Well Pumps, Constant Speed

Open Bypass Three-Way Valve

Balance Valve

Figure 8: Headered pumps.

ter of valve authority and quality should be reviewed thoroughly in a separate technical paper. Another development that has enhanced the efciency of these systems has been that of a running limit on contemporary variable frequency drives. This prevents the pump from overloading the drive. This means that the drive and motor can be sized at the design condition rather than at the pump runout condition. For example, assume that a chilled water pump requires 29 bhp (22 kW) at the design condition and 35 bhp (26 kW) at the run-out condition or the nonoverloading point on the pump curve. With older drives, it would have been necessary to equip the pump with a 40 hp (30 kW) motor and drive. With this running limit, the pump can be furnished with a 30 hp (22 kW) motor and drive without concern for the horsepower requirement at the pump run-out condition. This reduces the rst cost of equipment and total electrical installation. It also provides higher wire-to-shaft efciencies at reduced loads on the system. A recent development has been the use of geothermal energy for cooling and heating. Unfortunately, there has been some confusion about the capabilities of these thermal sources during variable ow. If the thermal source, such as a well eld or lake, is capable of producing the energy required at design ow, there will

Well Field

Figure 9: Constant ow geothermal system.

Water Source Heat Pumps

Pump Control Check Valve Total System Pumps, Variable Speed C

DP

Two-Way Valve

Well Field

Figure 10: Variable ow geothermal system.

be adequate thermal capacity at reduced ow. Misunderstanding this has resulted in the application of complicated pumping and piping systems (Figure 9). ( Consulting engineers, who understand the concept of the variation in heat ow at reduced ow, have developed simple pumping and piping systems as shown in Figure 10. A number of consulting rms have many installations in operation with this conguration. This demonstrates that no need exists for separate well pumps or balancing valves on the circulating pumps or the building heat pumps.
Summary

on all variable volume, HVAC systemsnot just on special installations.

References

1. Peterson, K. 2004. Variable primary ow, chilled water plant conversion. HPAC Engineering. March.
Bibliography

The most signicant fact about all HVAC water systems is not the systems conguration, but what are the hours of operation at all percentages of ow, from minimum ow to maximum design ow? Only after receiving this information, can an engineer make use of the suggestions here on the reduction of rst cost and increase of overall operating efciency. The increase in quality of coil control valves and the added software for the control of these valves and pumps has resulted in simplicity and greater efciency for most of the HVAC industrys chilled and hot water distribution systems. Todays level of ability and competency of the designers and operators of these systems permits the use of this technology

Bahneth, W. and E. Peyer. 2004. Varying views on variable ow chilled water systems. HPAC Engineering 76(3): S5S9. Bahneth, W. and E. Peyer. 2003. Energy use characteristics of variable primary ow chilled water pumping systems. Proceedings of the 21st IIR International Congress on Refrigeration. Avery, G. 2003. Operating chillers in the max-cap range. Engineered Systems, June. Taylor, S. 2002. Primary only vs. primary secondary variable ow systems. ASHRAE Journal, February. Avery, G. 2001. Improving the Efciency of Chilled Water Plants. ASHRAE Journal, May. Rishel, J.B. Control of variable speed pumps in HVAC water systems. ASHRAE Transactions, CH-03-4-3. Rishel, J.B. 1977. Use of balance valves in chilled water systems. ASHRAE Journal, June.

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