Heat transfer Chilled water tank help - Aspiring HVAC Engineer

[BlackestKnight]

Hello All,

I am new to this forum, and to the field of Facilities and HVAC engineering. I am doing an internship for a chemical manufacturing company and the company uses a lot of used equipment for its maintenance/Facility Engineering department.

We have an HDPE uninsulated water storage tank and its in the vicinity of a compressed air unit and a boiler. The tank isn't insulated so the chiller is doing more work than required so I found this

http://www.radiantbarrier.com/double-bubble-insulation.htm

A reflective bubble wrap insulation. I have a few questions if anyone would please be willing to help.

1. How can I calculate the amount of heat we should be able to reflect at a given temperature of 80 F?

2. How can I justify this project in my proposal? would I measure the amount of power generated currently by the chiller to maintain the current chilled water temperature and compare it to the new, insulated temperature before performing a cost analysis?

3. The insulation is typically for roofs though would the same properties hold for an HDPE tank?

 

[IRstuff]

How much more work? Has this been quantified? HDPE is not a particularly great thermal conductor or insulator, but there are those that are substantially better. Why not just spray-on or stick-on urethane or polystrene foam insulation?

TTFN
faq731-376