Confidential Client – M4 Cooling Tower Upgrades
This Fortune 500 Pharmaceutical company’s high volume, pharmaceutical production facility had ongoing issues with their 20 year old 800 ton cooling towers breaking down, which not only impacted the comfort of building occupants but also the supply of process chilled water to manufacturing equipment. Working in conjunction with both the cooling tower manufacture’s rep and Genesis Engineers, Cyma was contracted to provide an expedited refurbishment under an EPCM platform.
Due to the 24/7 operations of the facility, a shutdown of chilled water supply was intolerable. A set of 500 ton temporary cooling towers were installed atop onsite fabricated temporary steel support platforms. With the execution of a 12” hot tap to the condenser water suction header during a time sensitive partial shutdown to the system, the temporary cooling towers were tied in and brought online.
Replacement of all existing cooling tower wearable parts including fill, sheaves, bushings, shafts, bearings, belts, nozzles, and motors to provide 95% efficiency. Installation of three new PUROFLUX sand filters, sweeper piping, and basin jets to remove dirt/ scale from the chilled/condenser water system. Installation of three new 60-100 HP variable torque drives with integral bypass and NEMA 3R enclosure to efficiently control the new 60 HP cooling tower fan motors. Installation of a new backwash discharge system included 800 GAL polyethylene holding tank, level sensors with high level alarm, 45 GPM sump pump, and SCH 80 PVC piping to discharge tower effluent to interior sanitary.
Upon project completion and equipment functional testing of the overhauled cooling towers, on a summer design day the facility is now able to satisfy chilled water demand with two cooling towers under a 60% load. The new controls system and VFDs coupled with the installed extensions to the tower water return header, now allow the facility to isolate any one of the cooling towers for maintenance with zero impact to the building’s operations.
