Success stories - Other stories
MUSEUM
Castel Sant’Angelo museum complex: monitoring, control and humidification system in the exhibit rooms.
Castel Sant’Angelo (Hadrian’s mole or “Castellum Crescentii” in the 10th-12th centuries), also called the Mausoleum of Hadrian, is a monument located on the right bank of the Tiber in Rome, opposite the Pons Aelius (currently called Ponte Sant’Angelo), not far from the Vatican, in the Borgo district; it connects to Vatican City via the fortified corridor known as the “passetto”. The castle was radically reconstructed several times in the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance.
Owned by MIBACT, in December 2014 the museum became part of the Lazio Museum Complex.
In the period from 24 June to 17 September 2017, the former papal rooms of Castel Sant’Angelo hosted the exhibition entitled “LABYRINTHS OF THE HEART. GIORGIONE AND THE SEASONS OF FEELING BETWEEN VENICE AND ROME”. On display were 45 paintings, 27 sculptures, 36 printed books and manuscripts, as well as numerous other objects, prints and drawings, with works by some of the great masters of the sixteenth century, including Titian, Tintoretto, Romanino, Moretto, Ludovico Carracci, Bronzino, Barocci and Bernardino Licinio, all on loan from various Italian and foreign museums.
OFFICE
Office comfort: air humidity control using gas-fired humidifiers.
Torre Realia BCN is part of the recent development that has become the symbol of the new Barcelona financial district. The buildings were designed as complementary sculptures, with organic and supple forms, by architect Toyo Ito, in collaboration with Fermín Vazquez. The Torre Realia building has 24 floors, used as offices; construction was completed in May 2009, after three years' work. The building has a total floor area of around 45,420 sq.m, and is 110 metres tall. To ensure an optimum work environment inside the offices and consequently the best possible conditions for personnel, Carel was asked to install a specifically-designed humidification system. Given the specifications and the size of the building, and to meet energy saving requirements, it was decided to use a product that exploits the affordability of gas, a fuel already used in the building for other applications, installing 6 gaSteam units. The price gap between gas and electricity in fact makes gaSteam the ideal choice for these types of installations, where steam is needed many hours a day, allowing savings running into the thousands of euros every year. The ventilation and air-conditioning system is switched on just before opening times, completely independently, and likewise is switched off at the end of the working day, thus avoiding unnecessary operation when the offices are closed. gaSteam uses demineralised feedwater, meaning less maintenance is required on the units and thus further limiting running costs.
HOTEL
Optimum all-seasons air-conditioning and energy saving
Parchi del Garda Hotel is a brand-new four-star structure set against the magnificent natural backdrop of Lake Garda, strategically located between the area's main theme parks.
Split into five wings, the hotel offers an enviable lakefront location and has 233 rooms, including 15 suites. The low-consumption solution used for room air-conditioning in the hotel consists of six air handling units (AHUs) with cross-flow heat exchangers, exploiting the principle of indirect evaporative cooling. Air-conditioning is thus provided using a 35,000 m3/h primary air handling unit installed in the basement for the reception hall, restaurants and one conference room, plus five additional 4,500 m3/h air handling units for the rooms, installed under the roof, each fitted with a humiFog adiabatic atomiser featuring two distribution racks, one for cooling the hotel rooms in summer and the other for humidification in winter. The primary air introduced into the rooms is constantly kept at 25°C, with integration of direct expansion fan coils that use engine driven heat pumps operating on natural gas. A further five independent AHUs serve the other meeting rooms and use humiFog for humidification in winter. Indirect evaporative cooling in summer delivers cooling capacity of 113 kW with 33 kW of equivalent power savings. All for just 1.15 kW (single-phase) of power consumed by each humiFog appliance.
SUBWAY STATION
Adiabatic air conditioning at the Peñagrande subway station, Madrid, Spain
This report describes the functioning of the adiabatic air conditioning system at the platforms of Peñagrande subway station, in Camino de Ganapanes street, Madrid.
We shall therefore describe the elements which make up the system and how they work. The installation of this solution provides more comfort, cooling the environment using water as a source of power, and is considerably more economic than traditional cooling systems (direct expansion) as it consumes less power. Due to the thermo hygrometric conditions of the city centre, the adiabatic humidification/cooling system is very convenient during the summer months, as its power consumption is substantially lower.
In order to obtain these conditions we installed a high-pressure atomization unit, with suitable flow and a stainless steel frame including the nozzles needed to nebulize and cool the air.
The main components of the system are pumping station, water distribution and atomization system (nozzles, solenoid valves, connection pipes and coupling units), water treatment system. A special pump generates high pressure water, which is then atomised through stainless steel nozzles, producing a very fine and uniform mist. The droplets created evaporate spontaneously, consequently humidifying and cooling the air. The sophisticated control system combines the action of an inverter, which controls the pump flow-rate, and a series of solenoid valves that activate only the nozzles required, ensuring the system always operates at the optimum pressure to atomise the water, over a wide range of flow-rates.
BANK
High pressure water humidifier in HSBC
Headquarter in London, HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the world.
In Dusseldorf Branch (Germany), during winter time, the outdoor air is very dry so that, increasing its temperature with an heating system, its relative humidity decrease leading the air condition at a very low comfort level. The objective was therefore to maintain a correct level of humidity in the air during the winter months, in order to increase the level of comfort and decrease absences due to seasonal illnesses, thus increasing productivity.
A humiFog humidifier has been installed in the air conditioning equipment. Up to 246 kg/h of water can be sprayed by the humifog using only 1,050 watt, that means only 4.26 W/kg. The sprayed water is supplied by a reverse osmosis treatment system so that the maintenance of the humidifier is strongly reduced. The humiFog pumping station is equipped with a Variable Frequency Driver and a multi stage atomising technology obtaining a wide modulation range: the BMS can require humiFog any flow rate in the range 47 to 246 kg/h. In this way, humiFog will spray exactly and only the quantity of water the BMS is requiring. Precise ambient climate control is obtainable using humiFog humidifier to have a very comfortable air condition.
CONCERT HALL
CAREL controls the humidity in the new Casa da Musica
One of the most amazing developments in contemporary architecture is undoubtedly the Casa da Musica concert hall, inaugurated last April in the city of Porto, in northern Portugal. The building, located right in the historic heart of the city, resembles a large mushroom with sharp corners made from white concrete, occupying a space of twenty two thousand cubic metres over nine floors.
Built at a cost of 100 million euro and designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, winner of the competition held by the Portuguese city in 1999, the Casa da Musica includes various special rooms (recording, electronic music, workshops parallel to the concerts, bookshop, music shop) and two auditoria.
The "Small Auditorium" covers 392 square metres and has seating for up to 300 people. The "Large Auditorium" measures a vast 1100 square metres and has a capacity of 1238 seats and 120 musicians. The "Large Auditorium" provides the best acoustic and technical conditions for staging medium and large musical productions.
To satisfy the high environmental quality and comfort requirements of these two large concert halls, the CAREL humiSteam series immersed electrode humidification systems have been chosen. Both auditoria are installed with a total of nine humiSteam humidifiers that can produce steam with continuous modulation from 20% to maximum capacity.
The design was handled by the engineer Luis Graça from the Rodrigues Gomes design studio in Porto, and the appliances were installed by the company SOUSA PEDRO, SA. Special thanks to Mr. Mário Nunes from LUSO ITALIANA SA for his kind collaboration.
