2018

Report About DX cilled water and VRF air

conditioning system and tunnel
ventilation

Name : Hamed Hussien Hamed

Sec : 2
BN : 41

‫ هانى الصاوى‬. ‫مقدم الى د‬

Introduction
The Direct Expansion (DX) and Chilled Water central air conditioning plants are both used at
different places depending on the applications and size of the place to be air conditioned.
Both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages. Let us see the comparison of
DX and chilled water central air conditioning plants

1) DX Central Air Conditioning Plants are more

Efficient

In the DX type of central air conditioning plants the air

used for cooling the room is directly chilled by the
refrigerant in the cooling coil of the air handling unit. Due
to this heat transfer process is more efficient, since there is
no middle agency involved for the heat transfer resulting
in higher cooling efficiency.

In case of the chilled water system, the cooling effect from

the refrigerant is first transferred to the chilled water,
which is then used to chill the air used for cooling the
room. There is some loss of the cooling effect when it is
being transferred from the refrigerant to the chilled water
and from there to the air due to which the chilled water
systems have lesser cooling efficiency. The chilled water
acts as the secondary medium for cooling the room air in
air handling unit.

Further, the chilled water has to flow long distance along

the whole building. On its way it tends to get heated due
to friction of flow and also due to surrounding heat
absorption. The chilled water also has to be pumped by
the pump, which adds more heat to it. Thus as the chilled
water flows from the chiller to the air handling unit and
again back to the chiller, apart from the heat from air, it
also absorbs lots of additional heat, which leads to high
increase in its temperature. The chiller has to remove this
additional heat from the water due to which its efficiency
decreases or rather additional power is required to remove
this additional heat. In the DX type of central air
conditioning plants the refrigerant travels only through
the small distances and there is no pump involved so the
additional heat absorption is less, which makes the DX
plants even more efficient
2) The Chilled Water Plants can be used for the
Large Multi Storey Buildings

In the direct expansion types of the central air

conditioning plant, the refrigerant like R22 flows through
the whole air conditioning system including the air
handling unit. When the refrigerant flows in the
refrigeration piping there is lots of drop in its pressure.
Due to this the length of the refrigeration tubing and the
distance between the condenser and the air handling unit
should be kept minimum possible.

If the air handling unit is kept at the height more than the
condenser, the loss in pressure is pronounced since
refrigerant travelling from the condenser to the air
handling unit is in liquid state. As the distance between
the air handling unit and the condenser increases the loss
in pressure also increases. At certain point the losses may
be so high that the refrigerant may not be able to reach
the air handling unit, leading to complete failure of the
system. At the larger height difference there is also oil
return problem from the refrigerant to the compressor

Due to these reasons, in direct expansion type of the

central air conditioning plant there is limitation on the
distance between the condenser and the air handling unit.
The distance between the two cannot be too high. This
limits the application of the direct expansion type of
central air conditioning systems to the small buildings or a
number of rooms on the single floor. In such cases the
plant room and air handling room and the rooms to be
cooled are located on the same floor. The height
difference between the condenser and the air handling
units has to be quite reasonable so that they can function
well.

One of the solutions to increase the capacity of the DX

systems can be to increase the number of air handling
units on upper floors. But with this will be additional
number of joints in the refrigerant tubing from which there
will be higher chances of leakage of highly expensive
refrigerant. This leads to too many operational and
maintenance problems.

One may think that we can employ compressor of very

high capacity to increase the refrigerant pressure, but this
will lead to highly excessive capital and running costs of
the plant. This is because we will have to install the
compressor of capacity much higher than needed.

Thus the direct expansion types of the air conditioning

plants can be used only for smaller buildings or various
rooms on the same floor.

There are no pressure loss problems in the chilled water

system. In this system chilled water is pumped by the
pump at very high pressure, which is good enough to
carry it to various floors of the multi storey building. The
losses in the pressure of water are accommodated by the
sufficient capacity of the pump, which has low capital and
running cost. Further, the water doesn’t carry any oil so
there are no oil return problems.
In case of the chilled water system the compressor,
condenser, expansion valve and the chiller are all kept at
the same level in the single plant room. There is no
problem as such of the height difference between the
condenser and the air handling unit since the refrigerant
does not travels to the air handling unit. The flow of the
refrigerant is limited to the chiller plant. The water chilled
in the chilled flows to the various air handling units kept
on different floors of the building. The whole arrangement
and the structure of the chilled water type of central air
conditioning plant makes it more suitable for cooling the
large multi storey buildings and even for very long
distances along the same floor level. This makes the chilled
water central air conditioners more popular than the direct
expansion type ones

How Does VRF Work? Multi-splits include multiple indoor units

connected to a single outdoor unit. Ductless products are fundamentally different from
ducted systems in that heat is transferred to or from the space directly by circulating
refrigerant to indoor units (evaporators or condensers) located near or within the
conditioned space. (When the indoor units are in the cooling mode they act as evaporators
and when they are in the heating mode they act as condensers.) In contrast, conventional
ducted systems transfer heat from the space to the refrigerant by circulating air (in ducted
systems) or water (in chillers) throughout the building. VRF systems are enhanced versions
of ductless multi-split systems, permitting more indoor units to be connected to each
outdoor unit and providing additional features such as simultaneous heating and cooling and
heat recovery. VRF heat pump systems permit heating in all of the indoor units, or cooling of
the all the units, not simultaneous heating and cooling. Heat recovery systems provide
simultaneous heating and cooling as well as heat recovery to reduce energy use during the
heating season. Over the past 15 years the technology has advanced in a number of areas: •
Standard compressors to variable speed and capacity modulated scroll compressors • Direct
driven outdoor fans to variable frequency drive, inverter-driven fans • Direct driven indoor
coil motors to direct current or ECM-type motors • Variable capacity indoor units • Better
heat exchanger surfaces with multi-segmented coils • Improved controls and diagnostics •
R-22 to R-410A • Better refrigerant charge and oil management Other features include the
addition of concealed ducted units and ceiling cassette configurations to the traditional wall-
mounted units. Refrigerant piping runs of more than 200 feet are possible and outdoor units
are available in sizes up to 240,000 Btu/ hr.