THE CHALLENGE.

One of our local industrial clients came to our team to help redesign a refrigeration AHU for their meat-packing facility in Detroit, MI. This client was experiencing a lot of ice buildup from poor air distribution across the coils, and they were concerned that they didn’t have any redundancy. They were also concerned that they lacked the necessary capacity for their operations.

THE SOLUTION.

To help improve the existing AHU’s air distribution, redundancy, and capacity, we engaged our in-house engineering team, Limbach Collaborative Services (LCS), to conduct a load calc and redesign of the air handler that was just installed by another contractor, just two years before Limbach got involved. After recommendations from LCS, our client decided to correct the airflow and redundancy first and see how it helped.

We installed a (6) cube fan array with the motors all wired back to a VFD panel. Not only did this help with the ice buildup, but it also allowed us to adjust the fan speeds more easily to get the best heat transfer out of the evaporator coils. Before the installation, the space temperatures were seen only as low as 42 degrees. After the retrofit, we were able to get the space temperatures down to 32 degrees.

Overall, this project was a huge success. Our client now has better control and airflow, consistent cool temperatures, and the necessary extra redundancy to prevent future production issues.