Large buildings, data centers, and other facilities rely on chillers to cool and dehumidify the air; they also provide chilled water for industrial and commercial applications. Heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems often account for half of a commercial building’s annual total energy consumption, making them a good candidate for energy efficiency improvements.
YORK® Magnetic Centrifugal Chiller (YMC2) systems from Johnson Controls incorporate active magnetic-bearing technology, eliminating the need for oil-lubricated bearings and enabling chillers to consume less energy: 10–15% less than oil-lubricated variable-speed centrifugal chillers and up to 40% less than conventional fixed-speed chillers. In addition to this technology, the latest YMC2 systems incorporate redesigned variable-speed drives, evaporators, and advanced control systems.
Johnson Controls engineers used Model-Based Design with MATLAB® and Simulink® to develop the YMC2 chiller’s proprietary capacity control logic, which continually monitors and fine-tunes the chiller’s operations to maintain optimal performance.
“Model-Based Design enabled us to deliver a higher-quality control system faster than was possible with our traditional approach,” says Curtis Crane, senior staff engineer at Johnson Controls. “We designed a fully integrated control system in Simulink, verified and optimized it via simulation, and generated about 500,000 lines of code for our production chiller. The result is a system that reaches its set point faster, provides accurate control, and requires almost no configuration or maintenance in the field.”