Water Chillers 85

stored. Inlet vanes installed ahead of the impeller stabilize the

performance of the compressor over a range of load conditions.
The inlet vanes adjust the gas quantity (gas flow rate) as well as
the angle of the vapor as it enters the impeller, which creates a
new compressor performance characteristic for each vane posi-
tion. The vapor goes through several stages of compression and
then is discharged into the condenser.
The hot vapor enters the condenser. The vapor is cooled by
water from the cooling tower circulating through the condenser. As
the water passes through tubes in the condenser it picks up heat
from the vapor. The water then goes back to the cooling tower to
release into the outside air the heat that it has picked up in the con-
denser. The condenser pump moves the water around this circuit.
Once the entire vapor refrigerant is condensed to a hot liquid, the
refrigerant leaves the condenser through the liquid line.
The hot liquid refrigerant from the condenser is metered
through an orifice system into a pressure chamber, which is called
an economizer. The purpose of the economizer is to pre-flash the
liquid refrigerant. When the liquid refrigerant enters the econo-
mizer the pressure on the refrigerant is reduced. This reduction in
pressure reduces the boiling point of the liquid refrigerant. How-
ever, the temperature of the liquid refrigerant is still above the
new boiling point. Because the liquid refrigerant is hotter than its
boiling point a part of the liquid refrigerant begins to boil off. This
boiling off of the liquid refrigerant is called flashing. The liquid
refrigerant which is boiled off, or flashed, changes state to a vapor
or gas. This gas is called flash gas. When a part of the liquid re-
frigerant is flashed, it removes heat. This flashing continues until
the remaining liquid refrigerant is cooled down below the boiling
point which corresponds to the pressure on the liquid. This is the
same process that is used in metering devices to cool the liquid
refrigerant down to the required evaporator temperature.
Pre-flashing in the economizer reduces the volume of flash
gas required to cool the refrigerant flowing through the metering
device into the evaporator. This reduction in the volume of flash
gas in the metering device means that more of the liquid refriger-
86 HVAC Fundamentals

ant is available for use in the evaporator. This makes the chiller sys-
tem more efficient. Also, there is less of a load on the first stage of
the compressor and, therefore, a reduction in the power require-
ments on the compressor. The pre-flashed gas from the economizer
is sent back to the compressor to be compressed. The liquid refrig-
erant in the economizer, which is now at an intermediate pressure,
that is, a pressure somewhere between the higher pressure of the
compressor and the lower pressure of the evaporator, continues
through the liquid line into the metering device.
The condensed liquid refrigerant from the economizer is
metered into the evaporator through the metering device. The
metering device is a system of orifices in the liquid line. The
purpose of the metering system is to maintain the required refrig-
erant flow for each load condition. As the liquid refrigerant flows
through the various orifices, its pressure and temperature is re-
duced. This causes a part of the liquid refrigerant to flash, reduc-
ing the temperature of the remaining liquid to the required
evaporator temperature. This cooler, lower pressure liquid-vapor
mixture now enters into the evaporator through the liquid line. As
the refrigerant liquid-vapor mixture leaves the liquid line it goes
into a liquid distributor which runs the length of the evaporator.
The distributor helps to promote a more uniform heat transfer
throughout the entire length of the evaporator. The temperature
of the refrigerant liquid-vapor mixture is about 40°F. The tem-
perature of the water from the air handling units is about 55°F. As
the water travels through tubes in the evaporator it is cooled
down about 10 degrees to approximately 45°F.

CHILLED WATER TEMPERATURE CONTROL SYSTEM

One of the functions of the chilled water temperature control

system is to modulate the centrifugal compressor’s inlet vane posi-
tion. By varying inlet vanes or compressor speed, the capacity of
the compressor is modulated according to the system load. A typi-
cal sequence of operation would be that a rising return chilled wa-