December 14, 2017

The Frank White Annexe building at the University of Queensland (UQ) St Lucia campus houses the pyrometallurgy research centre and part of the School of Chemical Engineering. The facility contains multiple small water-cooled furnaces utilised for research activities. The furnaces had been cooled directly by the town mains potable water supply.

A.G. Coombs was engaged by UQ to review the existing installation and provide a solution to reduce the university’s mains water consumption.

An alternative furnace cooling system was devised and installed to serve the 27 furnace heat exchangers. A closed loop system cooled by an air-cooled chiller via plate heat exchanger, the new system has reduced mains water usage by over 150,000 litres a day!

Following an engineering review in March 2017 a detailed reverse design brief was provided by A.G. Coombs to the University and after approval the new system was constructed and installed with commissioning and completion in July and August 2017 respectively.

All pumping is controlled by variable speed drives allowing the flow to adjust to match the heat rejection required due to the changing number of furnaces open to the system.

The chiller operates with elevated leaving water temperatures compared to traditional chilled water systems resulting in more energy efficient operation in this application.

Connections are included to the mains water supply and to a sewer drain point to allow the furnace cooling closed water loop to be quickly converted to a single pass arrangement (like the previous arrangement) as an emergency back-up.

The use of an efficient chiller and cool water storage plus variable speed pumping and a smart control strategy has delivered a flexible and energy efficient technical solution for cooling the 27 furnaces at The Frank White Annexe building.

As well as reducing the University of Queensland’s water consumption by over 150,000 litres per day!