COMPRESSORS
The intelligent compressor revolution
Kevin Glass, managing director of Bitzer UK and president of the Institute of Refrigeration, talks about how the digital information age is ushering in a new era for the refrigeration industry, and how intelligent compressors are at the heart of it.
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n days gone-by, a refrigeration system was pretty much a black box. When something went wrong, diagnosing the source of the problem could be as much a detective challenge as an Agatha Christie novel. Engineers peered deeply into sight glasses to discern valuable clues to the conditions inside; painstaking visual inspections were undertaken around, on top of and beneath plant; set-points and superheat settings were meticulously checked, and gauges were hooked up and pressures recorded.
It was time-consuming and, truth-be-told, a rather hit and miss process. It often relies as much on the intuition of the time-served field engineer as any truly systematic and scientific approach.
Today, with the introduction of modern digitally-based technology, everything has changed. The developments that have revolutionised the car industry are beginning to have a similarly transformational impact on our own industry.
Today, an intelligent compressor and its associated control system has more computing power than the Apollo rocket that first put a man on the moon. As a result, refrigeration systems are no longer black boxes. Their innermost secrets are available – and downloadable – at the touch of a button.
This has been made possible, of course, by the ability of modern digital systems to record and store vast amounts of data – on operating conditions, performance history and a host of dynamic variables that, in the past, were invisible and largely unknown.
The digital revolution has made what happens inside the black box visible. In the process, it has also given us tools to analyse and understand it. And not only in real time, but historically, enabling us to see the processes at
26 July 2019
work over a given time that resulted in a breakdown. The data collection and analysis tools at our disposal today would boggle the mind of a refrigeration field engineer from a few generations ago. Transport them forward in time to our day to stand before the service interface hooked up to a modern compressor pack, and he would be forgiven for thinking he had been transported aboard the Star Ship Enterprise.
For example, the latest version of our Bitzer Electronic Service Tool (BEST) software allows refrigeration engineers to access the compressor’s IQ system via a PC or tablet. It gives users a comprehensive overview of a compressor’s operating status and configuration, and enables troubleshooting of compressors, frequency inverters and condensing units.
Service engineers can use it to safely adjust system parameters, analyse errors, display data logs, update the firm-ware and more. The tool can also be used for rapid commissioning, monitoring and servicing compressors and their electronic components.
The system can automatically set commissioning parameters for the refrigeration plant based on information about the refrigerant, application and compressor model. This significantly reduces the time required to get a unit up and running. The data log can also be used to confirm that the compressor is being operated correctly, and identify any issues that need attention during the commissioning process.
In operation, it can also help diagnose potential problems and speed up fault-finding, and, connected to a computer, alarms can be read in real-time. This gives engineers unprecedented access to systems and how they are operating.
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