Climatic test chamber has been built at the company’s European excellence centre to allow for more a comprehensive testing regime
Daikin Applied Europe has said that a new witness testing service will support its efforts to futureproof development of new products in line with regulatory changes such as those affecting Ecodesign.
A climatic test chamber has been introduced to the company’s applied products excellence centre in Cecchina, Rome, as part of wider investment focus in the site that dates back to 2016. The chamber is intended to support the testing service for chillers and other cooling technologies to a variety of standards.
Amendments to the testing centre will ensure all of Daikin’s future products can function in any form of environment. The testing regime has now been accredited to EN 14511:2013, ISO 9614:2009 and other major standards recognised in the US and Europe, according to the company.
Additional approval has also been granted by the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) for the climatic chamber, while testing of air-cooled units as part of Daikin’s Eurovent testing campaign will also be conducted at the Rome site.
A spokesperson for the company said that its European centre of excellence had always offered witness testing largely, although this was largely for meeting needs of UK and other major markets that require the function as standard. This was particularly the case for larger or mission critical projects.
The spokesperson said, “As an independently certified facility we are able to undertake our own product certification which has been key in accelerating developments to cater for the latest legislation changes, namely Ecodesign.”
Daikin Applied Europe said the addition of a climatic chamber to its site allows for much broader array of testing that can include both air and water-cooled chillers up to a maximum cooling capacity of 2000 kW. Up to 30 fans can be supported at the site.
A dedicated water-cooled function supported by three test stands for trialling cooling appliance units of 2MW, 4MW or 11MW is also available.
The company stated, “Climate conditions can be set from Southern European conditions to colder Northern regions, with temperatures as low as -15 degrees Celsius. Middle Eastern hot ambient temperature conditions can also be simulated, up to 52 degrees Celsius.”
Daikin Applied Europe said that free cooling, heat recovery and heat pump tests could also be performed in the climatic chamber. It is also possible to trial glycol-based cooling solutions with leaving water temperatures to 18 degrees Celsius along with multipurpose 4-pipes to 6-pipes units and acoustics.
