Diseño de Sistema de Automatización del Equipo de Aire Acondicionado del Edificio del Laboratorio de Productos Farmacéuticos de la Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social

Abstract

The present work details the design process of the automation for the air handling units from the pharmaceutical laboratory of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social in Costa Rica. In any pharmaceutical laboratory specific air conditions are needed to avoid the risk of contamination to the production rooms. The existing control of the air handling units does not operate correctly, it brings lots of problems to the personnel and to the process this has become a risk of the laboratory being shut down by Costa Rica’s health regulator. Recommendations from ASHRAE are followed to determine the setpoint levels to adjust these areas. The type of sensors needed are determined for the reading of temperatures, pressure differentials, occupancy, relative humidity and for the measurement of electric current to the fan and the compressor of the air handling units. A programmable logical controller is selected for the units with ductwork, the rest of the units are decided to be handled with a thermostat. A humidity control technique is then selected to control the relative humidity, then the latent heat load of the rooms is determined in order to select electric resistance heaters to control relative humidity. Also a technique to ensure the positive pressure in the rooms is selected, it is warned that this will only work if the rooms are properly sealed. With those variables determined it is proceeded to design the PLC logic and program it. Afterwards software is selected for the building management system (BMS) and JavaScript code is developed to show trends of data, to change setpoints and to set schedules for the air handling units.