Is the condenser already running?

A Herculean task awaited Dieter Hilde­brandt and his team at the Bitzer Kühlmaschi­nenbau GmbH factory in Schkeu­ditz at the end of 2013. With the F gas direc­tive and the second stage of the ErP Direc­tive slated to take effect in 2015, the entire range of condensing units was to be completely over­hauled. “On the one hand, we wanted to comply with all current effi­ciency regu­la­tions and also design the units for future compli­ance with other direc­tives,” says Hilde­brandt, Manager World Condensing Unit.

On the other hand, they had to ensure back­wards compat­i­bility, which meant retaining housing dimen­sions and connec­tion points. While Bitzer took care of the improve­ments to the heat exchanger, a strong partner was needed to deal with the fans. Thanks to years of successful coop­er­a­tion, ebm-papst got the nod. Detailed require­ments for noise levels, step­less control char­ac­ter­is­tics and energy effi­ciency soon led the project staffers to the HyBlade® EC axial fan. A posi­tive side effect for the series with its modular design: The work done by 25 fan models in the old gener­a­tion of condensing units is now done by only three HyBlade® models with 350, 400 and 500 millime­ters and two different guard grilles.

Good prod­ucts, top tech­nical support and expert advice helped us make rapid progress with the project.

Dieter Hilde­brandt, Manager World Condensing Unit bei BITZER

Hilde­brandt is full of praise, saying “Good prod­ucts, top tech­nical support and expert advice helped us make rapid progress with the project.” Oblig­a­tory veri­fi­ca­tion measure­ments from the aeroa­coustic fan test stand at ebm-papst in Mulfingen were espe­cially helpful. The test stand makes it possible to record air perfor­mance data and noise emis­sions simul­ta­ne­ously and provided impres­sive veri­fi­ca­tion of the nozzle’s opti­mized air duct design.

Quiet power

Besides its convincing energy effi­ciency, the HyBlade® has a noise level up to 3 dB(A) lower – with higher perfor­mance – thanks to its sophis­ti­cated blade geom­etry. More than once, commis­sioning has demon­strated just how quiet the new condensing unit is. Hilde­brandt recalls with a smile, “The customers waited intently for the fan to start, but it had already been running for a while at partial load an 70 percent power consump­tion!”