US company Air Innovations, which specialises in custom environmental control systems for clean rooms, medical systems and other critical environments, is providing an innovative solution for Caesars Entertainment’s High Roller observation wheel.
The company will design and build the complex HVAC systems used to maintain the temperature of the cabins in the High Roller observation wheel, which will be the world’s largest when it opens later this year.
The High Roller is 168m tall and features 28 cabins, which hold 40 guests apiece. It is expected to operate 18 hours per day, 365 days a year.
Air Innovations is required to maintain a temperature between 19°C and 23°C in the glass-encased cabins, even though external daytime temperatures average highs of 40°C in July and lows of 4°C in December.
In addition to achieving consistent temperatures, Air Innovations has to ensure the shape of the air conditioning units conformed to the convex sides of the mechanical compartment beneath the floor of the globe-shaped cabins.
Air Innovations’ final solution included two custom environmental-control units (ECUs) in each cabin.
Each ECU is composed of dual, redundant refrigeration circuits which operate independently, creating failsafe measures should any one of the circuits experience a failure.
The net result is four independent circuits, which allows for load shedding on moderate temperature days.
In addition, the solution includes a fifth cooling failsafe, in the highly unlikely scenario that all electrical systems in the cabin shut down:
a battery-operated ventilation fan provides
a level of ambient cooling until that cabin reaches the ground.
Each unit can also provide heat, as necessary. Each of the environmental control systems communicates directly with and can be controlled by the base operation (at the bottom of the wheel).
Air Innovations CEO Michael Wetzel says the company is excited to be part of a team that is building the world’s largest observation wheel.
“The technology and packaging challenges involved in this project were an ideal match with Air Innovations’ core capabilities,” he says.
“We design and build environmental process control systems for applications that cannot be addressed with standard HVAC equipment.”
The company customises packaged solutions for temperature (with control tolerances as precise as ±0.01°C); humidity (with control tolerances to ±0.5 per cent); filtration (HEPA, ultra low particulate air and molecular); pressure; and direct-expansion, chilled-water or thermoelectric capabilities.
For more information see www.airinnovations.com