Wrap Around Heat Pipes

Wrap Around Heat Pipes

Human comfort and health of occupants are affected badly by presence of mould and fungus which are not only harmful, but they are also difficult to get rid of. Once the building gets infested with microbes, the remedial work is not cheap and many times requires complete shutdown of building. All the troubles created due to high indoor RH are preventable with proper design calculations with heat pipes.

InviroTech Wrap-around Heat Pipes are versatile and useful in a wide variety of building types and have been equally successful in commercial as well as industrial applications.

Commercial buildings of varied application fields like hospitals, hotels and green buildings are ideal candidates for heat pipes. On industrial front, food, pharma & many other industries benefit greatly with prevention of high humidity spikes that can adversely affect product quality and shelf life.

Wrap-around Heat Pipes are excellent means to achieve control over indoor humidity as they enhance the moisture removal by cooling coils. With virtually zero operating cost. 

Wrap-around Heat Pipes provide reheating after the cooling coil. The heat from the airstream before the cooling coil is captured and transferred to air, after the cooling coil. Thus a dual acting heat transfer is achieved, one for pre-cooling and second for the reheating of air.

Wrap Around Heat Pipe
Wrap Around Heat Pipe

Wrap-around Heat Pipes are U-shaped in structure and are installed inside Air Handling Units such that one side of the U comes before the coil and the other side is placed after the cooling coil.  The placement of heat pipe usually does not require any significant alteration to basic AHU structure and design.  To create space of it, the length of the AHU sometimes may need to be increased but most of the times the existing space provisions are enough to allow heat pipe installation.

The two sections of heat pipe installed like it is hugging a cooling coil in the AHU. As the heat is removed from incoming air, ie pre-cooling, it reduces the needed cooling coil capacity.  The lowered on-coil temperature also aids the cooling coil to reach lower off-coil temperatures and remove more moisture from the air. This might result in the air being too cold after the cooling coil, the heat pipe can reheat the air, and does this without any external energy needed, ie. heat pipe achieves reheating with zero operating cost.

Advantages of Wrap Around Heat Pipes

  1. The main advantage of heat pipes is that is uses no power, which means there is zero operational cost. Products such as DX heat recovery units and water run-around coils do have some electricity cost, whereas electric heaters have a large electrical consumption.
  2. The long lifespan of heat pipes is unparalleled as there are no moving parts and thus, no wear and tear.
  3. There is only a small space requirement compared to DX heat recovery units or other device that need to have components outside the AHU. The heat pipes can just be fully installed inside the AHU, without having a significant impact on AHU size.
  4. In terms of Low Initial Cost, Wrap Around Heat Pipes are one of the most sought after products for humidity control, second only to the electric heater. However, as mentioned previously, there is zero operational cost in running of a heat pipe.
  5. Since there are no moving parts, heat pipes have extremely high reliability. This helps to avoid any downtime as where other products may breakdown or need to be replaced over time.
  6. There is minimal field installation work as the installation only consists of slotting the factory-assembled heat pipe into the AHU and covering up the sides. There is no need to run any piping or wiring for heat pipes.
  7. Heat Pipes have high ease of operation. The main requirement is to do calculations and designs properly during the designing stage and provide an air bypass (if needed).
  8. Temperature regulation can be easily achieved by installing an air bypass (if needed).
  9. Heat Pipes require very low maintenance, due to not requiring any moving parts again. Only a simple cleaning of the coil is needed.