Case Studies

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Application Note

No air conditioning,

no business

Singapore is geographically

located just off the equator —

making it hot and humid all

year round. All the commercial

buildings on the island are kept

cool by air conditioners and

cooling towers to provide a

omfortable shopping and

working environment. A break-

down with the cooling system

can spell trouble for any facility

owner, as the enclosed building

units can turn unbearably stuffy

ver

y quick

Business-critical

tripping problems in

Singapore shopping mall

From the Fluke Digital Library @ www.fluke.com/library

electrical fittings within the

ommon areas of these buildings

— one of which is this particular

shopping mall. The chiller

installation had been working

fine in the mall for many years

when it suddenly developed

tripping problems.

Temperature rising

ording to Mr

. K

en G. Jung,

executive director of QPM, the

mall has three chillers, two main

chillers and one smaller unit

that takes over when the mall is

closed for the night, to maintain

ambient temperature.

Each chiller has an incoming

feeder attached into the air-con

distribution system

. Both run

simultaneously when the mall is

in operation.

The Quality Power Management team analyzes data collected with the Fluke 43B Power

Quality Analyzer.

Operator: Electrical consultant

Measuring tools: Fluke 43B Power

Quality Analyzer

Features used: Inrush triggering

Power

Quality

Case

Study

These are the problems that

electrical c

onsultants, like Qual

ity Power Management Pte Ltd

(QPM), face regularly. When all

is running smoothly, their work

is ab

out maintenanc

e and

check

s. But when a glitch

arises, they have to spring into

action to help building manage-

ment locate the root of the

problem

. Ever

y minute that

passes is another notch of

temperature increase — and

that is bad news for business.

On one such typically swel

tering day, QPM received a call

from a shopping mall located in

the Singapore suburbs.

QPM is engaged by a prop-

erty developer to manage eight

buildings. It is the licensed

engineering company for all

Summary of content (2 pages)

PAGE 1
Business-critical tripping problems in Singapore shopping mall Application Note Power Quality Case Study Measuring tools: Fluke 43B Power Quality Analyzer Operator: Electrical consultant Features used: Inrush triggering No air conditioning, no business Singapore is geographically located just off the equator — making it hot and humid all year round. All the commercial buildings on the island are kept cool by air conditioners and cooling towers to provide a comfortable shopping and working environment.
PAGE 2
While each feeder is ideally hooked up to only one chiller, under emergency situations both chillers should be able to utilize the same feeder if needed. “Unfortunately, on that afternoon, it was necessary to utilize both chillers through the same feeder,” said Ken. “All went well when the first chiller came up. But when the second chiller kicked in, the feeder tripped the entire air-con system.” This was bad news.