Electronic-computer rooms and certain manufacturing processes require temperature and humidity to be closely controlled throughout the year. Air-conditioning systems for this purpose often need additional controls for the condensing equipment.
When city water is used for condensing and the condensers are equipped with a water regulating valve, automatic throttling of the water by the valve automatically compensates for low water temperatures in winter. When cooling towers or evaporative condensers are used, low wet-bulb temperatures of outside air in winter will result in too low a head pressure for proper unit operation. A controller may be used to recirculate some of the humid discharge air back to the evaporativecondenser suction to maintain proper head pressure. With cooling towers, the water temperature is automatically controlled by varying the amount of air across the towers, or by recirculating some of the return condenser water to the supply. Figure 13.47 shows the piping arrangement.
When air-cooled condensers are used in cold weather, the head pressure may be controlled in one of the following ways: for a single-fan condenser, by varying the fan speed; for a multifan condenser, by cycling the fans or by a combination of cycling and speed variation of fans for closer head-pressure control.
Some head-pressure control systems are arranged to flood refrigerant back to the condenser coil when the head pressure drops. Thus, the amount of heat-transfer surface is reduced, and the head pressure is prevented from dropping too low.
