Chillers, CRAH & Cooling Towers
This course covers the facility-scale chiller plant, computer-room air handler (CRAH), and cooling-tower systems that reject heat from a data-center facility water loop before it reaches any liquid-cooling or air-cooling terminal equipment. Students learn centrifugal and screw chiller operation, CRAH airflow and setpoint control, cooling-tower water treatment and Legionella-control practice, and the performance framework of ASHRAE 90.4 for evaluating mechanical system efficiency using the Mechanical Load Component. Hands-on work uses a partner in-kind chiller training unit and a CRAH trainer at the AL-2 pod. Students perform chiller startup and shutdown sequencing, water-treatment sampling, and cooling-tower basin and fill inspection, treating Legionella-control chemical dosing and confined-space basin entry as safety-critical competencies with documented lockout and atmospheric-testing procedures. The course maps directly to the OctoPod CHILLER and CRAH procedure sets used across the AI-factory maintenance program.
What you'll be able to do
- Diagram a chilled-water plant from chiller through CRAH terminal unit, identifying primary and secondary loop boundaries.
- Execute a chiller startup and shutdown sequence on the training chiller unit per manufacturer procedure. Safety-critical
- Interpret chiller performance data (approach temperature, kW/ton, refrigerant pressures) to identify a fouled condenser or evaporator condition.
- Configure CRAH supply-air setpoint, airflow, and control-band parameters consistent with ASHRAE TC 9.9 thermal guideline recommended ranges.
- Perform cooling-tower water-treatment sampling and interpret results against Legionella-control and scale/corrosion-control targets. Safety-critical
- Execute lockout/tagout and atmospheric testing before authorizing entry to a cooling-tower basin or confined-space equivalent area. Safety-critical
- Calculate a chiller plant's kW/ton efficiency and compare it against ASHRAE 90.4 Mechanical Load Component performance targets for the applicable climate zone.
- Document a chiller startup/shutdown event, water-treatment sample, or basin-entry event in the facility mechanical log.
- Escalate an out-of-range water-treatment result, a chiller fault code, or a failed confined-space atmospheric test to the responsible engineering authority. Safety-critical
- Compare direct-to-chip and rear-door liquid-cooling heat-rejection loads to conventional CRAH-only heat rejection to explain why facility water-loop sizing changes with rack density.
- Participate in a supervised live-site chiller plant walkthrough and full-load performance observation under an employer field-placement or Campus Node arrangement.
Train the team that runs the factory.
The Institute travels with every SAVRN campus.