Hydronic Heating and Cooling System For Price Industries’ Mock-Up Room 1

Price Industries researches and manufactures air, heating, and cooling distribution products. To show their clients how their products will perform in real-world environments, Price Research Center North uses mock-up rooms that create heating and cooling requirements to test various terminal units, such as fan coils or radiant wall panels. These types of terminal units require a continuous source of hot or cold water, which passes through the unit to heat or cool the space. The current closed-loop hydronic system in Mock-Up Room 1 takes up to 6 hours to stabilize before testing can start and does not have enough capacity to test all their products. Price Industries reached out to the University of Manitoba with the hopes that a student-led team can design a new closed-loop hydronic heating and cooling system for their Mock-Up Room 1. The system must be able to stabilize in under an hour, vary the flow rate to the terminal unit from 0.2 to 12 GPM, and supply temperatures ranging from 8 to 85°C. The supply temperature and flow rate should not vary by more than 0.5%, and the whole design should fit within a supplied cabinet space of 26”x180” and 42” tall. The team came up with concepts to meet each of the client’s needs, then combined them into a base layout. The team then used analytical calculations and numerical modeling to verify the base design and provide information to size the boiler, pipe diameter, pipe material, and the piping insulation. The final design uses a 36 kW inline boiler to provide 85°C hot water, and a cold water loop that circulates between a flat plate heat exchanger, cooled by an existing 1°C glycol line, and a 22 Gallon storage tank set at 8°C. Depending on the set temperature, a three-way mixing valve will let through the hot and/or cold water as needed, which is then pumped at 12 GPM to another 3-way valve that controls the flow rate by diverting excess flow from the terminal unit to the return line. The final design was proven to be stable from the analytical calculations with a maximum stabilization time of 5 minutes. A 3D model is provided to demonstrate how the design fits in the cabinet space, and schematic drawings are provided for contractor installation. A complete bill of materials with vendors and costs are included, with the total cost coming to just over $19,000. If Price would like more customizable control over the flow rate, a VFD may be installed on the main circulator pump; however, this did not fit within the budget. Further, money could be saved by downsizing the boiler anywhere from 36 kW down to 5 kW, if Price is willing to sacrifice stabilization time of up to an hour.

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