For both duty/standby and multi-pump applications, sensorless technology in Armstrong vertical inline (VIL) pumps offers superior control and maximum energy efficiency.
Sensorless Overview
Sensorless control enables a pump to decrease or increase its speed to match system requirements without any external signal. In other words, sensorless pumps emulate the performance of a remotely mounted sensor by pre-programming pump curve characteristics into the pump’s integrated controls. An illustration:
Sensorless Pump Technology Benefits
Switching to sensorless design makes sense for many reasons, including:
- Energy savings equivalent to placement of a sensor across the most remote heat exchanger, often saving 10-15% and up to 49% more energy than a sensor in the mechanical room
- Cost savings of $2,000 from not having to purchase, install and wire sensors
- Easy adjustment and trouble-shooting at the pump, instead of at the remote sensor in the building (the most remote load is not always where you want a sensor – e.g. the CEO’s office); simplified commissioning alone is estimated to save $600 per pump
Multi-Pump Installations
Most multi-pump control systems stage pumps using speed based staging. With sensorless pumps, the built in control logic draws on detailed mapping of pump efficiency curves to determine the best possible combination of pumps and operating speeds for any flow requirement.
When in parallel configuration, the system automatically calculates that a pump array would operate more efficiently with one more pump added to the current set of operating pumps, the control logic turns on one more pump and coordinates the operating speeds of all the operating pumps to share the load and will drop a pump as the demand dictates as well.
Design Envelope
Sensorless technology is part of Armstrong’s “Design Envelope” methodology: a demand-based intelligent control solution that models equipment and system behavior, monitors actual system conditions, and dynamically adjusts equipment operation to match system demand.
Armstrong Design Envelope pumps are available from Maddock Industries. If you’re an engineer or design-build contractor, let us help determine when sensorless VIL pumps make more sense than base-mounted baseline pumps. If you’re a building owner, let us show you how much you can save.
