Technical Manual · Cooling Plant
Chiller Plant — P&ID Methodology & Engineering Basis
Full engineering methodology for the chiller-plant SCADA HMI: ISA P&ID symbol conventions, primary/secondary chilled-water loop design, lead-lag chiller sequencing, CHW flow derivation, and the display/status engine anchored to js/conv-engine.js. This is an honest account — the page is a partial-calc display engine, not a full thermo-hydraulic simulation.
01 Purpose & engineering basis
The chiller-plant page is an operator-grade SCADA HMI mimic — an ISA-style P&ID rendered in the browser. Its job is to show plant topology (primary/secondary loops, chiller train positions, pump duty/standby), real-time status (run/fault, lead-lag state, flow animation), and setpoint annotations (CHWS supply temperature, differential-pressure setpoints, N+1 headroom).
What the page is not: it is not a thermo-hydraulic simulator. Equipment-level values (pump speed %, valve %, per-loop flow splits) are display/status fields from the conv-engine CHW basis, not back-calculated from independent hydraulic models. The one heavy derivation is total plant CHW flow, which is computed from the IT load and the canonical delta-T — all other displayed numbers are consistent descendants of that single basis.
Governing standard for P&ID symbology is ISA 5.1 Instrumentation Symbols and Identification. Chiller envelope is bounded by ASHRAE 90.4 / ASHRAE TC9.9 recommended CHW supply range 6–9 °C. Single-source engineering basis is locked in js/conv-engine.js (see §3 below).
02 Inputs — mode toggles & locked CHW basis
The page has no free-form calculator inputs. Instead it exposes mode toggles and reads a locked CHW basis from conv-engine.js. All displayed numbers descend deterministically from these inputs — no random values, no per-page hardcoded constants that contradict the basis.
| Input / Toggle | Value / Range | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHWS temperature | 7.2 °C | Locked basis | Primary chilled-water supply. Conv-engine MODEL.cooling.chws_c. Source: doc-09 line 15. |
| CHWR temperature | 14.8 °C | Locked basis | Primary chilled-water return. Conv-engine MODEL.cooling.chwr_c. Source: doc-09 line 15. |
| IT load | 1,850 kW | Locked basis | Site IT load from MODEL.site.it_load_kw. Cooling-kW term in flow equation. |
| Secondary loop SP | 18.8 °C | Locked basis | Rule 5: this is the secondary (condenser-side) loop setpoint — NEVER labelled "CHWS SP". See §3 terminology note. |
| Lead-lag mode | AUTO / MANUAL | Mode toggle | AUTO: engine picks lead chiller by run-hours. MANUAL: operator selects. |
| View detail level | OVERVIEW / DETAIL / ENGINEERING | Mode toggle | Controls label density on the P&ID. OVERVIEW shows only major status; ENGINEERING reveals all sensor annotations. |
| Chillers running / installed | 2 / 3 | Locked basis | From MODEL.cooling.chillers_running / chillers_total. Determines N+1 headroom display. |
03 Calculation methodology
Three real derivations power the page: CHW delta-T, total plant CHW flow, and chiller input power. Everything else is status/display logic driven by those three numbers. Function names map one-to-one to js/conv-engine.js.
CHW delta-T
chwDeltaT(m). Source: MODEL.cooling.chwr_c − MODEL.cooling.chws_c. Anchors every flow and heat-transfer calculation on this page.conv-engine.js · doc-09 line 83
Total plant CHW flow
chwFlowLps(m). c_p = 4.186 kJ/(kg·K) for water. The IT load (1,850 kW) is the cooling-kW term — per doc-09 worked example (line 84). heat-rejection including UPS losses (~1,927 kW) is also exposed for N+1 headroom checks but is NOT the canonical flow-derivation term.conv-engine.js · doc-09 lines 81–85
Per-loop flow split
Chiller input power (kW/ton sanity check)
Lead-lag sequencing logic
N+1 cooling headroom
04 ISA P&ID symbol conventions
The HMI follows ISA 5.1 tagging and symbol conventions. Equipment tags visible on the page map to the table below. Alarm colour hierarchy is strictly enforced — see the note on colour discipline.
| ISA Tag Prefix | Instrument Type | Display Location | Example Tag | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
TT | Temperature Transmitter | CHWS/CHWR headers, loop supply/return | TT-101 CHWS header | |
FT | Flow Transmitter | Primary header, per-loop risers | FT-201 primary header | |
PT | Pressure Transmitter | Pump discharge/suction, differential across coil | PT-301 pump-A discharge | |
DP | Differential Pressure | Across strainer, across chiller bundle | DPT-401 strainer | |
MV | Motor-operated Valve | Chiller isolation, bypass | MV-501 chiller-1 isolation | |
CV | Control Valve | Bypass, secondary-loop modulating | CV-601 DP bypass | |
P | Pump | Primary CHW pumps, condenser water pumps | P-701A/B duty/standby | |
CH | Chiller | Chiller train blocks | CH-1/CH-2/CH-3 lead/lag/standby |
--chwr). Standby equipment uses neutral grey (--ok). Warning conditions (N+1 margin low, pump near-trip) use signal amber (--warn). Fault/trip/alarm conditions use fault-red (--alarm). Instrument-cyan (--mn-accent) is reserved for page chrome only and must NEVER appear on a flow line or equipment symbol that can carry an alarm state — it would erase the alarm's visual signal. This is the same rule that governs all 34 manual pages.05 Primary / secondary loop architecture
The chiller plant uses a decoupled primary/secondary (P/S) design. The primary loop circulates through the chiller bundles at a constant low flow; the secondary loop modulates to match the data-hall cooling demand. A hydraulic decoupling bridge (bypass header) absorbs any flow mismatch.
| Parameter | Primary Loop | Secondary Loop |
|---|---|---|
| Supply temperature | 7.2 °C (CHWS) | 7.2 °C at coil inlet (same water, decoupled flow) |
| Return temperature | 14.8 °C (CHWR) | 14.8 °C at coil outlet (same ΔT at design load) |
| Flow regime | Constant-flow (primary pumps run at fixed speed) | Variable-flow (VFD pumps track DP setpoint) |
| DP setpoint | N/A (constant speed) | Secondary pump DP SP (operator-configurable) |
| Bypass / decoupler | Shared — absorbs primary/secondary flow mismatch | Shared — bypass flow direction reverses under low-load |
| Pump tags | P-701A/B (duty/standby) | P-801A/B (VFD, duty/standby) |
| HMI animation | Muted teal flow arrows, constant velocity | Flow arrow velocity scales with VFD speed display |
06 Worked example — 58.1 L/s derivation
This is the canonical CHW flow derivation that the page's Plant Capacity Panel and flow annotations are anchored to. Numbers reproduce conv-engine.js output exactly.
- CHW delta-T:
ΔT = CHWR − CHWS = 14.8 − 7.2 =7.6 K - Cooling-kW term: IT load = 1,850 kW (canonical basis,
MODEL.site.it_load_kw) - CHW flow:
Q̇ = 1850 / (4.186 × 7.6) = 1850 / 31.81 =58.1 L/s - Per-loop average (4 loops):
58.1 / 4 =14.5 L/s per loop — consistent with the ~17–19 L/s per-loop readings at near-design load shown on-screen - Available plant capacity (2 chillers × 1,200 kW rated): 2,400 kW
- N+1 cooling headroom:
2,400 − 1,850 =550 kW → displayed as green on the Plant Capacity Panel - Chiller compressor input (COP 4.5 reference):
1,850 / 4.5 =411 kW → Plant kW/ton =3.517 / 4.5 =0.78 kW/ton
07 References & standards
- ISA 5.1 (2022) — Instrumentation Symbols and Identification: P&ID tag prefixes (TT, FT, PT, MV, CV), loop bubble conventions, equipment symbol styles used on the chiller-plant HMI.
- ASHRAE 90.4 (2022) — Energy Standard for Data Centers: chiller COP reference (kW/ton benchmark), CHW supply temperature guidance 6–9 °C, N+1 cooling redundancy framing.
- ASHRAE TC9.9 (2021) — Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments: CHWS recommended range A1/A2 class, cold-aisle setpoint 18–27 °C (supply air), CHW supply 7–10 °C (typical DX/CRAH coupling).
- conv review 04 —
Documents/screenshot bms rz/conv/review/04-chiller-plant-review.md: original engineering conflict (19.1/22.6 vs 7.2/14.8 C), CHW flow alternatives (58.1 vs 126.3 L/s), resolution Decision A (conventional CHW 7/15 C). - conv review 09 —
Documents/screenshot bms rz/conv/review/09-engineering-basis-and-calculations.md: canonical site basis (IT 1,850 kW, PUE 1.45, CHW 7.2/14.8 C), CHW flow worked example line 84, non-IT power breakdown (chiller compressors 370 kW, pumps 210 kW, CRAH 130 kW). - Engine source —
js/conv-engine.js(conv-engine v1.0.0):chwDeltaT(),chwFlowLps(),heatRejectionKw(),MODEL.cooling.*. Single-source canonical basis for all BMS pages.
08 Assumptions & limitations
The HMI assumes a well-balanced, decoupled primary/secondary plant operating at steady-state design load. Transient effects (chiller pull-down time, pump start-up inrush, glycol correction to c_p) are not modelled. COP 4.5 is a reference benchmark — actual COP depends on condenser water temperature, part-load ratio, and compressor staging; the live HMI does not update COP from a transient model.
Flow-velocity animation on the P&ID is a visual cue proportional to the displayed flow value; it is not derived from a hydraulic resistance network. Pipe diameters and friction factors are not modelled. Equipment-level display values (valve %, VFD speed %, run hours) are status-field annotations consistent with the engineering basis — they are not back-calculated from independent models and must be treated as illustrative display parameters in any off-page engineering analysis.
This page and its methodology are an engineering education and visualisation aid. Final plant design, setpoint commissioning, and N+1 validation must be performed by qualified mechanical/controls engineers against the actual installed equipment and as-built P&IDs.