United States.
An industrial refrigeration system with natural refrigerant installed at The Helix Innovation Center (Ohio) is helping Emerson with its innovation initiatives and is serving as a learning laboratory for the industry.
The Helix Innovation Center features large-scale simulated environments, including a commercial kitchen, a two-story residential home, a supermarket, a data center, and the entire facility as a commercial building. Teams will use the facility to generate new ideas and then test them under real conditions.
The modules at the Helix Innovation Center not only have multiple cooling and/or HVAC systems installed, but also have condensing units located in ambient chambers to allow ambient temperature control from -30°F to 130°F. To cool these chambers, in addition to the one surrounding the 2,000-square-foot house, Emerson needed 50 tons of low-temperature cooling capacity.
The company created a subcritical CO2 cascade system working with an Emerson HFC 134a medium temperature industrial chiller, which resulted in a complete industrial refrigeration package. This system, which is now also The Helix's industrial cooling module, allows Emerson to take advantage of a test environment with real operating conditions and make final touches backed by proven results before going to market.
"To create the new system, the Emerson team started with their current Vilter 400 series reciprocating compressor and updated the design to withstand the higher pressures of the CO2 system. The compressor features the ability to modulate through a combination of discharge cylinder and the speed of 700 to 1800 RPM," said Wayne Wehber, vice president of business development, Vilter, Emerson. "The result is a system integrated into a common slip with a pair of two-cylinder compressors working in parallel to provide 50 tons at -35°F SST + 25°F SCT."
The Helix Innovation Center is a 40,000-square-foot facility located on the campus of the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, focused on providing a collaborative environment for researchers, academics and industry professionals to develop solutions to industry challenges.
