Ammonia used for the first time at Russian athletic facility

BOCHUM, Germany – When the first bobsled races take place in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, in spring of 2012, refrigeration equipment from the Berlin factory of GEA Refrigeration Technologies will ensure that the bobsleds have enough good ice under their blades. The contract for NPO Mostovik, of Omsk, one of the largest Russian construction companies, includes project engineering of the complete refrigeration facilities, delivery and installation of the refrigeration equipment, construction of the machine room, as well as ammonia piping along the bobsled track. This project will represent the first time that Russian sports facilities are equipped with an ammonia-based refrigeration plant.

Work is scheduled for completion in spring of 2012, since homologation followed by international competition is planned in March for this bobsled track.

At the heart of the new refrigeration plant are four screw-compressor units from the GEA Large Series – three type WB-5A and one PB-5A model – as they are used, for example, in the food and beverage industry. They offer cooling duty of a total of 4.2 MW, with outstanding efficiency. Use of ammonia as natural refrigerant plays a key role here.

Special permission for natural refrigerant

The use of ammonia in such a plant is a novelty for Russia, since strict safety regulations there have until now forbid ammonia as refrigerant for athletic facilities. The GEA project team, however, was able to convince the responsible authority of the advantages of this natural refrigerant over its synthetic competitors – with the results that special permission was granted for this project.

For this long bobsled track – which is alone served by 4 km of supply piping along the track – the great evaporation enthalpy and the above-average volumetric cold duty provided make positive contributions indeed. The required cooling duty can be transported with less volume of refrigeration and, in turn, in thinner pipes. A gas scrubber was installed by GEA Wiegand to minimise the health risk in case of any leak in the machine room. This unit would filter any escaping ammonia out of the air and would drastically reduce the gas concentration.