Cambridge Technical News

Designing a New Accessory for Heavy Industrial Plants

Written by Bill Meyer, Cambridge Applications Engineer

An industrial retrofit contractor we have often worked with won a contract for installing a large number of make-up air units in a heavy manufacturing plant. He wanted to design his system around 45,000 cfm M136’s, but had a problem.

The 3-way discharge plenum that Cambridge offers is not suitable for many heavy industrial plants. These plants typically have large overhead cranes. Since the M136 plenum extends into the heated space approximately 8’, it would be a candidate for immediate destruction since overhead cranes typically come within about 3’ of the exterior wall. 

In addition, this plenum has no means do direct the airflow in a particular pattern.

After some discussion, it was determined that Cambridge would design a new accessory. It would include a transition from a 42” x 42” discharge at the heater to a 44” high x 88” long discharge at the wall. Eight 22” x 22” double deflection grilles provide tremendous flexibility for directing airflow.

This design has proven to be beneficial from an installation standpoint, as well. Since most of the work is done at the exterior of the building, this minimizes the amount of time that may be required for scheduling crane shutdowns.

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Cambridge has been actively supporting our contractor partners with industrial retrofit heating/ventilating projects for over 40 years. Projects include: aluminum rolling mills, automotive/farming/construction/mining equipment manufacturers, tire plants, electrical appliance & motor manufacturing, corrugators, insulation product manufacturing, steel processing plants, bottling & canning plants, warehousing & distribution centers.