Have you ever wondered how an air conditioning system is able to circulate air in and out of a room? Well, it relies on a device called an air handling unit to bring air into the system and allow conditioned air to flow out of the system. There are different sizes to these air handler units, depending on the size of your structure. For instance, if you need to air condition a large commercial building, then you would need a large commercial air handler unit to regulate the air flow.
Every air handling unit is comprised of several components, such as an air filter, blower, cooling coil, mixing chamber, vibration isolator and supply duct. Each one of these components serves a vital purpose for providing people with the cool air that they so desperately depend on. The components exist inside of a big metal box which serves as the framing system of the device. They are configured inside of the box properly, thanks to the metal infill panels that are used. The metal has gone through a galvanisation process to boost its longevity which means the unit will stay functional for a very long time.
Here are the basic steps of how an air handle unit works:
1) Outside air enters the mixed air duct, which is used for both the recirculated air and the outside air. If this is a commercial building, then the roof will likely contain a rooftop packaged unit which brings air into the duct.
2) The air will enter a filtration system to remove all the harmful outside elements from it. These elements might include pollution, insects, toxins, pollen and anything else which would be hazardous to your health.
3) The temperature of the filtered air is cooled by a refrigeration evaporator coil, also known as a cooling coil. If you were to use the heater portion of an HVAC system, this would be a gas-burning heater instead.
4) A blower, or fan, blows the newly cooled air into the supply duct. This blower is how the air flow can be sustained.
5) Vibration isolators reduce the vibrations and noise, which normally come from active blowers. If a vibration isolator did not exist in your air handler unit, then the air ducts would all vibrate and echo noise into the rooms of the building. This is certainly not something that people would want to tolerate.
6) Finally, the cooled air flows through the supply duct and enters the rooms of the building.
If you wish to find out more information about air handler units, please feel free to get in touch with the Athena Air team.