Plant cooling.

[Tharon]

I'm sure you all have worked in hot, humid factories. I do, and probably will for a while now. Obviously the management doesn't want to spend money to cool a plant that is constantly being heated by numerous ovens that range from 350-1000 F. So we are stuck with exhaust and supply fans circulating fresh air into the shop.

While looking up fans for use on the shop floor, I saw these fans that evaporated water in front of them to cool the air it blew. Can this be applied to large supply air fans for a shop? Or is this just not economical in a large scale like that?

I guess what I'm asking, has anyone ever tried anything like that before? Air conditioning is out of the question, I was just curious if this small scale fan cooling could be used on larger fans, or if it would even be possibly in a high humidity area

 

[rguimond]

I'm sure you all have worked in hot, humid factories. I do, and probably will for a while now. Obviously the management doesn't want to spend money to cool a plant that is constantly being heated by numerous ovens that range from 350-1000 F. So we are stuck with exhaust and supply fans circulating fresh air into the shop.

While looking up fans for use on the shop floor, I saw these fans that evaporated water in front of them to cool the air it blew. Can this be applied to large supply air fans for a shop? Or is this just not economical in a large scale like that?

I guess what I'm asking, has anyone ever tried anything like that before? Air conditioning is out of the question, I was just curious if this small scale fan cooling could be used on larger fans, or if it would even be possibly in a high humidity area

I used to have an air-to-air heat exchanger in a fiberglass spray-up shop that used water for cooling and it worked great. However, we didn't spray into the air that was flowing into the plant - we sprayed a fine mist of air into the exhaust air stream just before it travelled over the heat exchange core. The "cooled" air removed heat from the supply air on the other side of the core, dropping the supply air to about 58-60F. Since the air exchanger changed all the air in the shop in 20 seconds, it was very effective at maintaining a cool, dry environment. I'm guessing that spraying water into the supply air would increase humidity and could result in condensation within the factory if surfaces were cooler than dewpoint. Of course, it would have much more ability to absorb heat...

 

[rkukl]

i think you might find these units helpful. i used them in similar plant pretty good results. some call these "swamp coolers" these i think are better. one issue to watch is stagnent water like a well swamp.

http://www.portablecoolers.com/

 

[Brijm]

I have done work in a Powdered Metal shop that uses the port a cool units... they seem to work well... Also remember when cooling a large area, you will want to create a flow for the hot air to be exhausted from the building. I would thing that a couple of cooling fans near an outside air source (dock door) and some exhaust fans near the ceiling.

 

[vf816]

I have a similar situation.Large building and it gets hot.We are lucky though we have both intake and exhaust units on the roof.When time is allowed (probably never)I plan on sucking in the cool air of night time to cool down the plant for day time.Then exhaust at the end of day before the night cool air is pulled back in.Although i will need to convince people that opening the door to let in 96 degree air is not the right thing to do.its that or chillers for us.