HVAC system upgrades at the Illinois State University

Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc., a premier designer and manufacturer of pump assisted two-phase heat exchangers, was recently awarded an approximately $500,000 contract from BTU Company, a Chicago, IL area Environmental Control solutions provider, to build eight (8) independent Split-Pump assisted Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers for HVAC system upgrades at the Illinois State University.

ISU’s Watterson North & South Towers are two dormitory high-rises on the Normal, IL campus that have old HVAC systems that need to be upgraded, and must be ready for incoming students arriving for Fall semester 2021. An engineer on this project had the bold idea of implementing heat pipe heat exchanger technology to achieve higher HVAC system efficiency through energy recovery via a more passive nature. BTU Company, working with Engineers at the Farnsworth Group and contractors with The PIPCO Companies were instrumental in this process, working with ACT and the university team to provide a superior design and installation plan for this Heat Recovery portion of the overall HVAC package for the ISU campus.

This award builds on ACT’s recent technology success with the Lehigh University STEPS building, which utilizes a pump assisted air-to-air heat exchanger program; however, the Watterson Towers designs have some additional complexities to address.  The Lehigh units were one piece, vertical, over and under designs. The Watterson Towers units will be two independent coils (split system), each 52” x 52” and the coils are placed approximately seven (7) feet apart horizontally and one (1) foot apart vertically.  The heat pipe heat exchangers are placed in each of the air handlers to exchange energy between the incoming air stream and the building exhaust air stream, without contaminating the clean incoming air.  In the summer, the cool air leaving the building is used to pre-cool the incoming outside air such that the active air conditioning load is less.  In the winter, the warm air leaving the building is used to pre-heat the incoming outside air such that the active heating load on the AHU is reduced.

Click here for more information about ACT’s Air-to-Air heat exchangers or call us at 717-295-6061 to set up a learning session with our engineers!