July Employee Spotlight
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June Employee Spotlight
Frank Rios is regional sales manager and a technical support agent who has worked with Wessels for over 9 years. Frank’s career began in the Navy and he later attended Ivy Tech to pursue a career in Business Management. He enjoys running, playing golf, basketball, and target shooting. When he’s not at work, he enjoys rooting for the Boston Celtics and the Denver Broncos. Frank is also very passionate about his family, friends, and work ethic.
Frank’s fast facts:
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite food: Steak
Likes: Traveling, basketball, golf, and target shooting
Dislikes: Liver, so don’t even ask!
Fun fact: Learned English age 12
Frank Rios
Regional Sales Mgr. / Support
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: 317-888-9800
cell: 317-696-1487
Wessels Product Certifications from Around the World
Wessels Company manufactures and ships pressure vessels and HVAC specialty equipment all over the world, which means products must pass rigorous testing to meet a variety of international certifications.
Wessels is primarily known as an ASME shop. ASME is short for The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and is a professional organization that sets technical guidelines for mechanical manufacturers, engineers, designers and equipment operators. The ASME certification signifies stronger fabrication standards and overall operation reliability.
There are various divisions to ASME coding, but Wessels manufactures specifically to section VIII division 1. For a vessel to qualify for certification, the manufacturer must pass an on-site certification process which is monitored and approved by an ASME inspector.
Wessels typically builds to “U” stamp because it’s all-inclusive of everything we can build to Section VIII. The “UM” stamp stands for “miniature vessels,” and is only valid for pressure vessels of a certain size.
Wessels also has the ability to build to a “UM” stamp if this would be required. “UM” is also self-certifying, so there is no involvement from the third party inspection agency for certifying “UM” vessels. In some cases it is preferred to have “UM” models made. However, there’s nothing that you can build in “UM” that you can’t also build with a “U” stamp.
Other international certifications are country-specific, such as the JIS and the CRN in Japan and Canada respectively. JIS is short for Japanese Industrial Standard and it signals to users that the reliability of the product has been met to the satisfaction of the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee.
The CRN stands for Canadian Registration Number and designates the design and use of pressure vessels, piping systems, and system fittings. The CRN certification is required for each product used within a system and ensures the fabrication, inspection, and registration of each product with the National Board. Any product design that is intended for use in Canada is reviewed multiple times and must be approved in all the jurisdictions within Canada where the product may be used.
The DOSH certification, which is an abbreviation for Department of Occupational Safety and Health, is from Malaysia. Wessels products that are covered under the DOSH certification include expansion tanks, heat exchangers, and pressure vessels. Manufacturers who import these items into Malaysia must be certified by a third-party inspection agency.
For vessels used in Singapore, the certification is called MOM or Singapore Ministry of Manpower. Before pressure vessels are to be used in Singapore, the Director of Occupational Safety of their approved representative needs to approve the manufacturers process in fabrication and a report needs to be issued and accepted by an overseas inspection agency. For vessels in India, the IBR or Indian Boiler Regulation certifies fabrication and materials used in pressure vessels.
The Pressure Equipment Directive, or PED, sets the standard for design and fabrication of pressure vessels for countries in the European Union. This certification ensures products conform to Pressure Equipment Regulations within the safety standards set in the EU.
In Australia, the AS1210 certification ensures that products meet the minimum standards for materials, design, manufacture, testing, inspection, certification and documentation requirements set by the Australian Standards for pressure vessels operated within the country. This standard specifies requirements for metallic and non-metallic vessels, or metallic vessels with non-metallic linings. This requirement is certified by inspections during various stages of the life of the vessel and it notes that the quality or other standards are met that may be relevant to the product.
Finally, Wessels Company’s liquid to liquid plate and frame heat exchangers are certified by the AHRI Standard 400. This certification ensures products meet and operate as intended and is attained after the product has been tested in a lab by third party inspection. The 400 standard means WesPlate heat exchangers meet safety, energy efficiency, and toleration level requirements set for the product by individual states and the government of the United States.
May Employee Spotlight
Grace Cramer is one of the new smiling faces in our Engineering Department. Grace holds the role of Product Design Engineer and has been with Wessels for 6 months. She enjoys traveling, cats, and playing board games, and she can even be found coding her own video games in her spare time. Grace likes to root for her alma mater, Purdue, and she also watches the Colts during football season.
Grace’s fast facts:
Favorite Color: Purple
Favorite food: Pasta
Likes: Video games, cats, hot tea, and traveling
Dislikes: Cold weather, peanut butter, needles
Fun fact: She’s a pescatarian
Grace Cramer
Product Engineer
e-mail: [email protected]
phone: 317-888-9800
Wessels Employee Wins Student Achievement Award
Wessels Company’s student employee, Ashton Conley, has Won the Student Achievement Award from Central Nine Career Center in Welding Technology.
The Achievement Award is given to an outstanding Central Nine Career Center senior who is in the second year of their program and has exhibited outstanding work, good attendance, is a good citizen and has shown outstanding work ethic in the classroom and lab. Only one award is given in each program and Ashton earned the award within in the Welding Technology program.
Welding instructor Jason Wiley recalls, “The second year I got him, unfortunately he had some problems at home I didn’t realize, and it turned out, you know, his house burned down.”
But Wiley says, he didn’t let his issues at home stop him from
excelling.
“I thought right to myself right then, this guy is good enough to go out already, he’s worked hard enough he can do it, so I called Bob and Wessels is here to honor him,” Wiley said. “That’s how much they think about him there, and they gave him a job and the next thing you know, I’m seeing Bob and he’s telling me what a great guy (Ashton) is and how hard he works.”
“He’s a hard worker,” Bob says. “I’m happy he was selected
for this award.”
Ashton has worked at Wessels since September 2018 and plans to attend Hobart Welding Technology Institute in October to attain more welding certifications.
Wessels Company proudly congratulates Ashton Conley on earning this award.
Seeing Green with Water-Side Economizing and Free Cooling
Happy Earth Day! New requirements to repair and upgrade existing buildings and infrastructure in an effort to lower emissions and improve energy efficiency means greener energy for the planet and an opportunity to see green as HVAC equipment providers.
ASHRAE Standard 90.1 requires water-side economizers on almost all chiller installations in North America to reduce the high cost of running refrigerant compressors when making chilled water for commercial buildings. The water-side economizer cools or partially cools the chilled water loop with alternate sources to reduce electric consumption and save energy and money. The economizer takes the heat from the building chilled water loop to earth contact groundwater or to the air though an evaporative cooling tower.
The WesPlate plate and frame heat exchanger is the perfect water-side economizer. It consists of specially corrugated metal plates that maximize heat transfer. Gaskets are fixed between the plates to contain and separate two fluids. These fluids flow alternately between every other plate, counterflowing to produce the greatest rate of heat transfer and provide the closest temperature approach to the incoming cooling tower or ground water. The special surface of the heat transfer plates provides a highly turbulent flow that scrubs the plates clean to reduce fouling and creates the highest rates of heat transfer possible.
ASHRAE Standards are the specifications for engineers designing HVAC systems in North America. For ASHRAE 90.1 Energy Standard, the following requirement has been added:
6.5.1 Economizers. Each cooling system that has a fan shall include either an air or water economizer meeting the requirements of Sections 6.5.1.1 through 6.5.1.4
ASHRAE 90.1
Engineers are required to add water-side economizing plate heat exchangers to almost all of their building designs. Because the efficiency of water-side economizers is limited by climate, ASHRAE has broken the US up in to climate zones.
How does it work? When a building requires about 500 tons or more for cooling purposes you go from an air-cooled refrigerant condenser in the air conditioner to a water-cooled condenser in the chiller. With water-cooled, there is typically a cooling tower or ground contact heat sink to move the heat from the building to the outside. A plate heat exchanger water-side economizer can be added to do some or all of the heat removal required by the building.
Economics. The savings of using a water-side economizer vary based on climate conditions at the location and how much chilled water is needed year-round. Installations with data centers require year-round cooling. An older mechanical/compressor system may operate as high as 1 kw/ton of refrigeration produced, while a system with a water-side economizer installed may operate as low as 0.3 kw/ton. So the savings can be calculated by taking the difference in operating cost between the full mechanical system and the costs when the water-side economizer is operating.
Example: NYC. A water-side economizer using a cooling tower typically works best when the temperature outside is down to 45⁰. So to calculate the savings of a system we must get a temperature profile of the region to see how often the water-side economizer will be running.
Seeing Green: The only way to guarantee savings and performance is to use AHRI Standard 400 certified plate heat exchangers like the WesPlate from Wessels Company. Wessels heat exchangers go through rigorous testing to be certified. ASHRAE 90.1 requires heat exchangers be AHRI certified and listed at www.ahridirectory.org.
For more information, check out https://www.westank.com/heat-exchangers/
April Employee Spotlight
April Employee Spotlight
Margaret Chojnacki is a Wessels Company Vice President and the Western Regional Sales Manager. Margaret is the employee who has been with the company the longest, at 25 years and has been in her current position for over six. She lives and works in Hawaii where she enjoys spending time with her family as well as swimming, SCUBA diving and sailing. Margaret and her husband Don, who also works for Wessels, have 7 children, 7 grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.
Margaret fast facts:
Employee
with the most longevity with the company at 25 years
Enjoys
living in Hawaii
Favorite
food: multi-cultural vegetarian cuisine
Hobbies: hiking, cooking, custom
dress making
March Employee Spotlight
Tristan Cochran is one of the new smiling faces in Wessels Company’s customer service department. Tristan has been with Wessels for about 3 months and is learning about all our customers and how to best serve them. She considers herself shy, but she has quickly become a friendly and fun part of the Wessels family. When she’s not in the office, she can be found shopping and painting. She loves pizza and enjoys watching the Colts during football season.
Tristan’s fast facts:
Nickname: T
Favorite color: Black
Favorite food: Pizza
Likes: Kids, kind people, love and food
Dislikes: Rude people
Hobbies: Painting and shopping
