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Energy Procedia 79 (2015) 239 – 244

2015 International Conference on Alternative Energy in Developing Countries and

Emerging Economies

Identification of Design Criteria for Chiller Plant Distribution

Network in Alabang Town Center, Philippines
Gerardo L. Augustoa,b*, Alvin B. Culabaa
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines
b
FLUIDNOVATION Research, Co., Quezon City, Philippines

Abstract

The applicability and limitations of the method in identifying the design criteria for chiller plant distribution network
in Alabang Town Center (ATC), A shopping mall in Manila, Philippines in were investigated. The hydraulic
calculation technique, chilled-water system simulation and optimization methods developed from previous studies
were applied to validate the theoretical results from actual pipe dimensions of the combined Chiller Plant No.1 and
Chiller Plant No.2 of ATC. The piping network has constant-volume primary and variable-flow secondary pumping
arrangement with temperature difference set-point of 5.56°C. Optimization results for piping network design criteria
revealed that minimum overall cost occurred when the velocity limit at primary line was 1.85 m/s and the velocity
limits at secondary line and plot take-off both at 3.00 m/s considering a pressure drop limit of 100 Pa/m. Hydraulic
calculation results also indicate that it has good agreement with the current piping dimensions of primary and
secondary lines of chiller plants main entry points in the Existing wing, Cinema area and Entertainment area.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of 2015 AEDCEE.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of 2015 AEDCEE

Keywords: Alabang Town Center Chiller Plants, Primary-Secondary Pumping Arrangement, Distribution Network Design Criteria,
Multivariable Newton-Raphson Method, Exhaustive Search Method

1. Introduction

In order to validate the results of hydraulic calculation including system simulation and optimization
methods developed from previous studies in an actual district cooling system, the distribution network of
chiller plants in Alabang Town Center (ATC) was used as benchmark for fluid flow analysis. Its

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +632-939-5051; fax: +632-738-2300.

E-mail address: [email protected].

1876-6102 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of 2015 AEDCEE
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2015.11.471
240 Gerardo L. Augusto and Alvin B. Culaba / Energy Procedia 79 (2015) 239 – 244

applicability and limitations when actual chiller plants are analyzed have still to be verified. Hence, an
actual investigation is conducted and discussed in this study.

The authors visited the chiller plants in Alabang Town Center in 2013 through the help of Philippine
Integrated Energy Solutions, Inc. (PhilEnergy). PhilEnergy is a subsidiary of Ayala Land Inc. which
manages the district cooling plants covering the needs of the Ayala Center redevelopment in Makati City,
Trinoma and Alabang Town Center in the Philippines. PhilEnergy provided the site development plan
including schematic diagram and layouts of chiller plants in ATC. The actual cooling loads, pump curves,
pipe lengths and fittings were used as input parameters for the purpose of identifying the piping network
design criteria of two (2) chiller plants in Alabang Town Center. Instead of using plate-type heat
exchangers, the distribution network is directly connected to air handling units. Calculation results show
that it has good agreement with the current piping dimensions of primary and secondary lines of chiller
plants main entry points in the Existing wing, the Cinema area and the Entertainment area.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Chiller plants in Alabang Town Center

Alabang Town Center is a shopping mall owned by Ayala Malls located in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila.
It has three (3) chiller plants which provide air conditioning for the Entertainment area, Cinema area,
Existing wing, the Garden and Expansion wing of the shopping mall with total chiller capacity of 4,375
ton of refrigeration. Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.3 are located at the ground floor, which serve
the Entertainment area and Expansion wing including the Garden, respectively. Chiller Plant No.2 is
located on the roof deck in the eastern side of Alabang Town Center, which provides air conditioning for
Existing wing and Cinema area. Table 1 shows a summary of chiller plants capacity with their
corresponding location. The nominated load distribution serving specific areas with the predicted number
of air handling units with 10% safety factor is shown in Table 2. The actual cooling load is approximately
3,050 ton of refrigeration with chilled water supply temperature of 6.7°C and temperature difference set-
point of 5.56°C.

Table 1. Summary of chiller plants capacity in Alabang Town Center

Chiller Plant Location Unit Manufacturer Capacity (TR) / Unit Total Capacity (TR)
CP1 Ground Floor 1 YORK 375 375
CP2 Roof Deck 3 YORK 500 1,500
3 Carrier 600 1,800
CP3 Ground Floor
1 YORK 700 700
GRAND TOTAl 4,375
 Gerardo L. Augusto and Alvin B. Culaba / Energy Procedia 79 (2015) 239 – 244 241

Table 2. Actual cooling load distribution with predicted number of air handling units in Alabang Town Center

Chiller Actual Cooling Design Cooling Number of Air Handling Units Total Cooling
Description
Plant Load (TR) Load (TR) (35 TR) (50 TR) (65 TR) Load (TR)
CP1 Entertainment Area 160.93 177.02 5 175
Existing Wing &
CP2 732.88 806.17 9 10 815
The Cinemas
Expansion Wing 1,606.19 1,766.81 8 21 1,765
CP3
The Garden 550.00 605.00 12 600

2.2. Piping network configuration of the combined Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.2

Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of distribution network for the combined Chiller Plant No.1 and
Chiller Plant No.2. This figure was used to validate the method of identifying the piping network design
criteria developed from previous study [1]. The pipe line that connects the air handling unit to the main
line is designated in this study as plot take-off (PTO). The air handling unit (AHU) is located and secured
in the mechanical equipment room (MER) area. Table 3 shows the predicted number of air handling units.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of piping network for the combined chiller plants at Existing wing and Entertainment area

Table 3. Design cooling loads of air handling units at Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.2

Chiller Plant No.1 Chiller Plant No.2

AHU TR AHU TR AHU TR AHU TR
A1 35 B1 50 C5 35 D6 35
A2 35 B2 50 C6 35 D7 35
A3 35 B3 50 D1 50 D8 35
A4 35 C1 50 D2 50 D9 35
A5 35 C2 50 D3 50 D10 35
C3 35 D4 50
C4 35 D5 50
242 Gerardo L. Augusto and Alvin B. Culaba / Energy Procedia 79 (2015) 239 – 244

Table 4. Pipe lengths of distribution network for Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.2 in Alabang Town Center

Main Line PTO Line MER / AHU Main Line PTO Line MER / AHU
AHU ID AHU ID
(m) (m) (m) (m) (m) (m)
Node 1 235.0 - - C3 39.80 20 12
Node 2 156.3 - - C4 111.0 20 12
Node 3 27.30 - - C5 62.32 20 12
Node 4 24.00 - - C6 42.00 20 12
Node 7 154.0 - - D1 56.52 20 12
A1 54.14 20 12 D2 124.7 20 12
A2 88.12 20 12 D3 98.64 20 12
A3 61.90 20 12 D4 141.0 20 12
A4 71.14 20 12 D5 159.8 20 12
A5 71.14 20 12 D6 99.90 20 12
B1 54.34 20 12 D7 123.5 20 12
B2 74.04 20 12 D8 82.00 20 12
B3 54.34 20 12 D9 115.3 20 12
C1 42.06 20 12 D10 98.60 20 12
C2 42.14 20 12

Table 4 summarizes the pipe length details installed in the network based on actual cooling loads with
predicted total pipe length of approximately 3.33 km. The normalized annual power load demand factor is
shown in Table 5. Pertinent cost parameters associated with components of objective function are
estimated life of distribution network, contractor fee for installation of pumps and pipe works as well as
interests for capital before taxes, payroll taxes, maintenance cost including property and insurance taxes.

Table 5. Normalized annual power load demand factor for Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.2

Month % Month % Month % Month %

January 46.69 April 79.52 July 71.46 October 69.52
February 52.35 May 77.87 August 69.79 November 63.48
March 63.01 June 79.36 September 69.34 December 53.46

2.3. Identification of governing equations for Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.2

The governing equations were pump performance characteristic, energy balance due to pipe friction
and mass conservation at chiller plant’s main entry points and at the nodes. As the primary pump of
Chiller Plant No.1 is used as transfer pump and by considering the secondary pump in Chiller Plant No.2
operates at variable speed then, the energy equation due to pipe friction can be expressed as

( δppp+ δpsp )j = Σi ciωi2 (1)

where, i indicates the number of pipe components and j the number of MER in the distribution network.
The notations ci and ωi denote the frictional coefficients of each pipe components and flow rate along the
 Gerardo L. Augusto and Alvin B. Culaba / Energy Procedia 79 (2015) 239 – 244 243

distribution network, respectively. The subscripts pp and sp represent the respective primary pump and
secondary pump present along the network.

3. Results and Discussions

Constant-primary and variable-secondary flow pumping system was used for Chiller Plant No.2 that
serves the Existing wing and Cinema area. Both constant-primary pumping system was used for the
combined Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.2 serving the Entertainment area. The network
configuration formed a 38 × 33 matrix with 38 nonlinear equations and 33 unknowns which to be solved
simultaneously. Overdetermined system of nonlinear equations was solved using multivariable Newton-
Raphson method with the solution vector determined using singular-value decomposition method.

Fig. 2. Best efficiency points at part load and full load conditions for Chiller Plant No.2 in ATC

3.1. Hydraulic calculation

The results of system simulation revealed the best efficiency points of Chiller Plant No.2 during
selected part load and full load conditions as shown in Fig 2. When the cooling loads downstream of
network reduced to 60% considering a diversity factor of 90%, a pump curve denoted as PC_Mod was
generated located between upper and lower pump curve limits with two (2) and one (1) number of
secondary pumps operating at rated speed, respectively. However, the primary pump still required two (2)
numbers of pumps to operate at rated speed. At full load, system pump head of Chiller Plant No.2
requires 25.4 m only. As expected, this value is lower than the overall system pressure drop of all pumps
operating at rated speed in Alabang Town Center which is ranging from 38.65 m to 42.17 m at full load.

3.2. Optimization method

Exhaustive search method was used to determine the design criteria of chiller plant distribution
network in ATC as shown in Fig 3. The objective function is a cost function derived from engineering
economics in which comparative cost analyses such as present worth and annual cost pattern methods
were used. The cost function variables are the following: (a) initial investment costs for pumps, air
244 Gerardo L. Augusto and Alvin B. Culaba / Energy Procedia 79 (2015) 239 – 244

handling units, and distribution network, (b) installation costs for item (a), (c) excavation and surface
restoration costs for distribution network, if any, (d) operation and maintenance costs, (e) payroll taxes
including taxes for property and insurance, and (f) depreciation cost. Optimization results revealed the
piping network design criteria for Chiller Plant No.1 and Chiller Plant No.2 in Alabang Town Center with
velocity limit at primary line of 1.85 m/s and velocity limits at secondary and PTO both at 3.00 m/s
considering a pressure drop limit of 100 Pa/m. Recognizing the design criteria could determine the final
pipe size dimensions of distribution network for the two chiller plants in ATC. Table 6 shows comparison
of actual pipe dimensions with the theoretical results of hydraulic calculation after optimization method.

Table 6. Comparison of theoretical results with actual pipe size at main entry points of Chiller Plants No.1 and No. 2

Theoretical Pipe Actual Pipe

Description AHU ID
Dimension (mm) Dimension (mm)
Main entry point at Chiller Plant No.2 Node 1 (Primary Line) 350 350 √
Connecting pipe to Cinema Area Node 3 (Primary Line) 250 250 √
Connecting pipe to Chiller Plant No.1 Node 7 (Secondary Line) 200 200 √

(a) (b)
Fig. 3. Optimization based on (a) present worth and (b) annual cost pattern methods for two chiller plants in ATC

4. Conclusion

The applicability and limitations of the method in identifying the design criteria for chiller plants
distribution network in Alabang Town Center were investigated. Main results are summarized as follows.
(1) Optimization results revealed that minimum overall cost occurred when the velocity limit at primary
line was 1.85 m/s and the velocity limits at secondary line and plot take-off both at 3.00 m/s with a
pressure drop limit of 100 Pa/m. (2) Hydraulic calculation results indicate that it has good agreement with
the current piping dimensions of primary and secondary lines of chiller plants main entry points in the
Existing wing, Cinema area and Entertainment area. As expected, the theoretical system pressure drop of
25.4 m is less than the actual system pressure drop of 42.17 m because Chiller Plant No.3 was neglected.

Reference

[1] Augusto GL, Culaba AB, Tan RR. Identification of design criteria for district cooling distribution network. Philippine Science
Letters 2013; 6(2): 182-197.