NTN Bearing Mfg. Canada Production Facility Expansion, Mississauga, Ontario

This project involves the addition of 114,000 sq. ft. to an existing building (total 285,000 ft2) in order to house 14 new bearing manufacturing lines.  VIRTUAL as part of a Design-Build joint venture with a general contractor provided, Architectural, Civil Structural, Mechanical and Electrical design, inspection and construction support services.  VIRTUAL also coordinated the application process to obtain Ontario Ministry of the Environment Certificates of Approval for air emissions and industrial wastewater discharge.  The project was completed in 2004, total value $60 million Canadian dollars.

Heat Recovery System

A special key feature in this project was the design and implementation of a Heat Recovery System for the recovery of the plant’s compressors heat. The recovered heat was used for the pre-heating of air during winter time. VIRTUAL designed the compression air system for NTN by installing 4 – 250 hp air compressors for their manufacturing process. The compressors were installed with a glycol pump system and roof mounted dry-coolers. VIRTUAL designed a system that could recover the heat from the compressors that would normally have been wasted through the dry coolers. The system uses the compressor heat to pre-heat the incoming air of the make-up air unit (MUA) to supplement natural gas. A three way valve directs hot glycol to the MUA whenever the outside air temperature is below 15 C. Remaining heat not removed by the MUA is further removed by the dry cooler. Presently one MUA is connected to 2 – 250 hp air compressors and the other 2 are reserved for a future MUA. The present installed system saves over $30,000/yr of energy through reduced natural gas purchases. The system was audited by the Federal Government of Canada and NTN was awarded an additional $38,000 of grant money for energy efficiency.