Energy-Efficient Humidification for Connor-Winfield’s New Cleanroom Facility

An Energy-Efficient Solution:

Craig Whitaker, project manager and construction coordinator for Connor-Winfield, immediately started looking for ways to design an energy efficient facility that would serve the company’s needs for years to come. The facility houses a 35,000 sq.ft. clean manufacturing room and 20,000 sq.ft. of clean support labs surrounding it, with a total volume of 710,000 cu.ft. To preserve the integrity of the cleanroom envelope, positive pressure has to be maintained in the room at all times. To accomplish this, large amounts of outside air are required to off set the exhaust and room leakage. The large air flows must have tight temperature and humidity control , and doing so in a budget friendly way was very important

Connor-Winfield called upon Mee Fog to assist them in designing a humidification system that would provide the humidity control they desired in an energy efficient manner. The building has four air handlers, rated at 18,000 cfm each and operating on economizer cycles. The units are served by a single high pressure Mee Fog pump that provides 1000 psi water to the nozzle headers via staging solenoids. The system is controlled by the Trane Tracer Summit control system.

Each unit has a maximum load of approximately 180 #/hr. The load is matched by using staging solenoids that bring on nozzle headers in various combinations. Excess moisture that is not absorbed into the air stream is collected on droplet filters and drained away. The total electrical load for this system is 1.2 kW.