Aula Magna de la UCV has renovated cooling towers for the air conditioning system

The Presidential Commission for the Recovery of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) announced the completion of work on the set of cooling towers that serve the air conditioning system of the Aula Magna of the UCV, as part of the recovery and preservation of the heritage value of the University City of Caracas (CUC).

The engineer in charge of the work, Fabián Flores, said that the diagnosis of the cooling tower system revealed several irregularities, including water flow imbalance, pipe blockage, control system failures, leaks, dirt and contamination.

In this regard, he explained that “the towers, pipes and panels were generally cleaned, the water flows were balanced, supports were replaced with bearings known as bearings, chemical washing, water treatment and calibration of the control system, which has guaranteed the proper functioning of the air conditioning system.”

The expert explained that the original air conditioning system of the Aula Magna contemplates a concrete structure that houses three cooling towers, whose function is to eliminate the waste heat absorbed from the building, cooling the hot water that comes from the chiller's condenser and dissipating it to the atmosphere through evaporation.

Meanwhile, mechanical engineer Sister Maury Fonseca highlighted the importance of “complying with the maintenance of these towers because they are necessary for the chiller that heats the Aula Magna. Without the cooling towers in good condition, the pressure in the chiller condenser would increase, which would increase the work of the compressor and thus decrease its useful life. Electricity consumption would also increase a lot,” he said.

At the same time, in the garden located in front of the repaired cooling tower, where there is the work entitled “Dynamism in 30 Degrees” (1953), by the sculptor Antoine Pevsner (one of the most representative artists of the Russian constructivist movement), the removal of the weeds, the leveling of the ground and the square tiles were carried out in order to recover the surrounding landscape.