The Birth Of Cool
(Syracuse, N.Y., May 22, 2002) -- When Dr. Willis Carrier unveiled the world's first centrifugal "refrigeration machine" 80 years ago today, he could only have imagined the impact it would have on commercial buildings. On this day in 1922, however, he had more immediate concerns, as he later described:
"When the day of the unveiling arrived, we had turned the machine over but we had not run it under load conditions. We did not have steam in our factory for the turbine, so we borrowed it from our next-door neighbor. By the time the steam reached us it was sufficient to run the machine when idling, but not to run it with the cooling load. By noon we had checked the steam line and fixed a leak. We started up the machine, using it to chill the water for our air conditioning system. When the guests arrived, our offices were cool and comfortable ~ and it was a hot day."
Carrier invited 300 engineers to his shop in Newark, N.J., for an evening of dinner, an amateur boxing match, and the unveiling of his new invention. Following dinner in the center of the sheet-metal shop, Carrier described the development of the machine to his guests. As he announced that they were about to see the machine in the next room, a loud and continuous noise suddenly penetrated the wall.
"It was terrible when I heard that long, loud, rumbling, slowly diminishing b-r-r-r. I visualized the rotor of the compressor tearing itself to pieces. Beads of perspiration came out on my forehead and my hands were soaking wet. But I kept right on talking, trying to act as if nothing had happened."
"Irvine (Lyle), sitting near the back, casually left with an air of calmness I knew he did not feel. Directly, he came back and signaled to me that all was okay. Later he told me the cause of the noise. In arranging the space for the boxing matches, one of our men pulled a large metal dining table across a rough concrete floor. No sound effect ... could have ... any better imitated the disintegration of a rotative machine."
The boxing match, arranged to attract guests to the launch, proved to be unnecessary as the potential of such a "refrigeration machine" generated enough excitement for one evening.
Today -- 60,000 centrifugal chillers later -- the company's products still "pioneer" the industry, as evidenced by the recent announcement of Carrier's Evergreen VSS technology -- the world's first variable speed screw chiller.
|
|
|
