Mechanical engineers who design chilled water plants are the target audience for the guide. All of the material in the guide is relevant to this group, although experienced engineers can briefly review Chapter on loads and Chapter on equipment and then refer to this material as necessary. System designers may get the most use from this manual by familiarizing themselves with chilled-water-system basics and understanding the benefits of various options.
Thereafter, when a specific job will benefit from these advantages, consult appropriate sections of the manual in detail. A chilled water system is a cooling system in which chilled water is circulated throughout the building or through cooling coils in an HVAC system in order to provide space cooling. Systems that employ water chillers are commonly called chilled-water systems.

When designing a chilled-wat er system , one of the first issues that must be addressed is to determine which type of water chiller to use. The 1-pipe system is poorly suited to chilled water distribution for several reasons. The water quantity used in chilled-water systems is usually considerably higher than that used for heating because the unit coils work on smaller temperature differentials in the cooling mode than in the heating mode.

