Let’s bring back a subject that has been already treated in a previous video on our Tempco YouTube channel explaining how to calculate the buffer volume in chillers, which is the volume of a thermal buffer tank.
Indeed, someone pointed out that there were no formula explaining how to calculate it.

Let’s start saying that it is first of all a check, because during the design step, we need to know some informations and data: these are the working temperature of the chiller which is the temperature of the cold water that the chiller is intended to provide and that is going to be stored inside the tank. Furthermore, the temperature of the warm fluid arriving from the process. The overall volume of the plant and the buffer tank volume we have estimated. Why these four data are requested?

Because with a very simple formula, which is showed in the video and here above, we can define if with this kind of volume and temperature levels involved the temperature arriving at the chiller will be the right design temperature, in other words, checking if the return temperature to the chiller won’t be too high.
As it was explained in the previous video, that’s because if a too high temperature arrives to the chiller, the chiller goes in fault, evaporation temperature raises as well as condensation pressure, and the chiller gets blocked.

And furthermore, it causes a rise in the temperature that cause a block of the overall production plant.