Chillers and The Importance of Big Data and Preventative Maintenance!

The interior environments of building and factories must be kept comfortable. Maintaining comfortable environments is made possible with HVAC systems. We not only supply simple home HVAC systems, but we are also setting the global standard in the integrated industrial HVAV systems business. A major one of these systems is our chillers, which are targeted at our B2B customers. A chiller is a type of HVAC system that supplies cool air and maintains comfortable environments in buildings.
 
At LG Intellytics, LG Hi-M Solutek, the LG L&A Research Center and Chiller BD are developing diagnosis systems to monitor customer equipment in real-time and diagnose problems with systems before they occur. Chiller sensor data and operations information are collected with BECON Cloud and Intellytics uses diagnostic logic to process this information and monitor signs of problems in the system to provide timely preventative maintenance.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how the diagnostic system developed at Intellytics examines and rectifies issues that occur with equipment on site. The first example is a customer’s condenser with an unusually high LTD (Liquid Temperature Difference). This index represents the temperature difference between the condenser and the coolant port. If this index is abnormally high, the compressor that creates cool air will lose efficiency and break down. The diagnostic system verified that the coolant in the system was being heavily polluted by dust coming from a nearby cement plant. LG was then able to work with the authorities to manage water quality control in the area and provide guidance on how to resolve the issue.
 
 

The second example we will look at is a case where the coolant in a chiller was not reducing in temperature quickly enough while the chiller was running. With Intellytics, the systems detected that the cooling performance had decreased and upon further investigation on site, it was determined that the flow of coolant was lower than the recommended level. The issue was found to be that the customer had used third-party equipment and coolant pumps to reduce costs and these were causing the decrease in flow rate. LG was able to provide guidance to the customer on how to properly manage equipment and system efficiency.
 
 

Through cooperation with our partners, we will continue to upgrade our diagnostic logic and develop competitive cloud based chiller services such as energy efficiency analysis and customer reports. We encourage you to look further into our differentiated big data solutions.