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Mega Cold Storage House in the United Arab Emirates

Line of Busi-ness:

Industrial Refrigeration

Application: Fruit and Vegetable Cooling

Country / City: United Arab Emirates / Sharjah

Fluid: NH3

Product: Ceiling unit cooler DHN, Wall/ceiling unit cooler GHN, Ceil-ing unit cooler GDS, Ceiling unitcooler GHS

The Arjomandi Group of Companies (AGC),founded in 1956, has been producing and dis-tributing fruit and vegetables in the MiddleEast for decades and in 2002 was awarded theprize as “Exporter of the year” by MohammedKhatam, President of the Department of Agri-culture. AGC has many plantations, distribu-tion offices and cold stores in Teheran and Shi-raz in Iran. Because of these extensive experi-ences in the production of fruit and vegetables,cold storage and distribution in large sectionsof Iran and Iraq, the plan was to expand thedelivery of fruit and vegetables into the UnitedArab Emirates, parts of Saudi Arabia and Omanas well. The location in Sharjah proved to be anexcellent base for the transshipment and stor-age of the sensitive produce.

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As a seaport Sharjah has direct access to theArabian Sea and therefore to all Iranian ports,from which the fruit and vegetable productionis shipped to the Middle East. Due to an ex-cellently maintained road network all impor-tant cities are easily reached, which means thatthe Arabian Peninsula is well supplied and hasgood infrastructure. It was therefore a simplelogical conclusion that the AGC’s no. 1 distri-bution point should be built here. With a dis-tribution area more than twice the size of Ger-many, there was a need on the Arabian Penin-sula for a mega cold store with the appropri-ate refrigeration plant and high-quality evapo-ration technology for industrial refrigeration.

The large goods transshipment point with three stainlesssteel evaporative condensers on the roofed delivery zone

„You name it, we cool it!“

With this motto ZAV Company LTD (ZAVCO)has for many years been taking up every chal-lenge in the field of refrigeration technologyand in 2002 they got the contract from AGCto install the refrigeration plant for this large-scale project on the edge of the desert. Notfor nothing is ZAVCO among the most quali-fied refrigeration plant constructors in the Mid-dle East, because, as experienced specialists incommercial and industrial refrigeration tech-nology, they naturally trust only high-qualityproducts from leading manufacturers in the in-ternational refrigeration industry. So it’s easyto understand why for them Güntner prod-ucts from Fürstenfeldbruck are a part of everyproject! The high quality of the sensitive goodsand the extreme temperatures of the Arabiandesert demanded a robust refrigeration plantof the highest technical level and a sophisti-cated controller to regulate the constant room

temperatures and air humidities. For econom-ic and energy reasons industrial refrigerationplants of this size are operated with a floodedammonia pump system.

S-GHS 066D: as an option with more powerful fan motors

Two S-GHS 066D/38s at the dizzy height of around 8.5m with maintenance gangway under the condensers

Aircoolers from Güntner

The project included a total of 55 cold roomswith 136 NH3 aircoolers from the GHS andGDS series. The aircooler coils were supplied inthe standard steel version hot-dip galvanizedat 450 °C and in the industrial hot-dip galva-nized steel version and with RAL 9003 paint-work as requested. All aircoolers were fitted inthe factory with pipework for hot gas defrost-ing in the drip tray, non-return valve, a drip trayinsulated against condensation forming on theoutside and a special anti-rust coating. 36 coldrooms were set up for normal refrigeration, 0– 2 °C, and 14 cold rooms were designed andinstalled for multipurpose cooling (normal re-frigeration and deep freezing).

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Two GHS 066D/38s lower the temperature inthe large delivery and sorting hall to +10 °C

Large separate cool zones were provided spe-cially for ripening bananas and the large pack-aging and sorting area was laid out for han-dling more than 1,000 tons of fruit and vegeta-bles daily. For over six months ZAVCO had 10refrigeration engineers and often more than 15assistants permanently employed in the fieldon the building site working together with Mi-lad Engineering (a subsidiary of AGC). Most ofthe 136 industrial evaporators had to be in-stalled and connected at a height of 8 – 9 me-tres and electric cables were laid and morethan 15 kilometres of steel conduits for con-densate, suction and hot gas pipes were in-stalled and welded, entailing the use of lifttrucks, large lifting equipment and scaffolding.

Güntner distribution experts and the project team fromthe Arjomandi Group of Companies in Fürstenfeldbruck

The central refrigeration plant

The heart of the mega cold store is the cen-tral refrigeration plant with three high pres-sure and three low pressure screw compres-sors from the Danish company York and onehigh and one low pressure separator workingin flooded pump mode. In the top class tiled

machine room the six screw compressors eachstand on a black marble plinth and are firmlyanchored directly to the foundations via vibra-tion dampers. The economic functioning of thewhole refrigeration plant was in the foregroundduring planning and installation, because thecirculation of the refrigerant is the optimum so-lution from the energy point of view. The NH3

refrigerant is pumped out of the two separatorsto the evaporators in the various cool zones.

Machine room belonging to the Arjomandi Groupof Companies (AGC) in the United Arab Emirates

The evaporators are "driven” flooded and theentire evaporator surface is available for theevaporation process, because, in contrast toexpansion valve operation, no part of the sur-face is needed for superheating. The liquefac-tion of the NH3 refrigerant takes place on thenearby delivery zone roof. Here there are threelarge evaporation condensers, made of stain-less steel and seawater-proof, which are sup-plied with enough water from a specially in-stalled seawater desalination plant near thecoast.

As 136 cold stores need defrosting, it was de-cided that NH3 should also be used for thisprocess, as there is always enough hot gasavailable in a refrigeration plant of this size tobe able to ensure effective hot gas defrostingat different times.

The defrost cycle

The hot gas is supplied via an insulated hot gaspipe to the evaporators and fed at the evapora-tor entrance via a solenoid, which opens dur-ing the defrosting process, firstly into the in-sulated drip tray and from here on to the en-trance to the evaporator via a non-return valve

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installed at the factory. During the defrostingphase the superheated ammonia condensesand defrosts the evaporator. The condensate istaken from the evaporator outlet via a conden-sate return pipe to the liquid distributor. Theclosed solenoid in the intake pipe prevents thecondensate getting into the low pressure areaduring the defrosting phase. A non-return valveis built into the condensate return pipe, whichprevents liquid NH3 entering the low pressureside during the cooling phase. Right beside thelavish machine room, which has been built tothe highest international standards, is the mas-ter display.

Computer-controlled master display with Güntner refrigeration

This marble-tiled control room is also fittedout with a Güntner evaporator, just like themachine room, so that a constant, pleasantroom temperature can be guaranteed. All com-pressors are fitted with York’s “Unisab II” con-trol module, linked with the so-called “mas-tersab control system” of the computer-con-trolled master display, so that the entire ma-chine room and all its graphically displayed pa-rameters can be monitored, controlled and ad-justed from here. As a special feature this con-trol system has been linked with the “profibusnetwork system” developed by Siemens andit is therefore possible for York in Denmarkto monitor all compressor parameters and theentire refrigeration plant, etc. and in the eventof a failure access it directly.

Connecting passages are cooled with S-GDS 051B/28 double coil evaporators

This forward-looking control of the entire plantmakes it possible for specialists in Europe toreact within minutes and to be on site with-in a day in the worst case scenario. The Arjo-mandi Group has had the very best of expe-riences with high-class German workmanshipfrom Fürstenfeldbruck. Therefore, it was decid-ed in mid-July 2006, to commission the con-struction of another 69 high-class evaporatorsfor the expansion of the cold store in Sharjahand 289 high power evaporators with stainlesssteel pipework and aluminium fins for a newmea cold store project.

The technical requirements were high!

Capacity: Outside temperatures:22.000tons ofchilledgoods

0 °C to 2°C

Dry bulbtempera-ture

44 °C

8.000 tonsof refriger-ated goods

–25 °C Wet bulbtempera-ture

31 °C

Bringing in and sortingtemperature

10 °C

20.000 m2 cold room floor area with various tem-perature zones