Living in the arid deservings of An...

Living in the arid deservings of Ancient Egypt, a 10-year-old King Tutankhamun wasn't worried about his face paint smearing or his hair frizzing from humidity.

More than 3000 years later, in the swampy heat that gripped Chicago last week, the young king was in subordination to renovation which brought plant operations into a 30000 square lower extremity facility at the museum.

The cooling theory was installed in 2002 as part of a $23 million renovation that brought central plant operations into a 30000 square base facility at the museum.

It combines old-fashioned ice cooling -- think Curly of the Three Stooges shlepping a block up of ice to fill an early 1900 icebox -- with sophisticated piping bodys

The centrifugal chiller cooling theory brought relief to exhibit curators quite through the 87-year-old, 1.25 million square base institution by providing the common thing crucial to the preservation of priceless artifacts: year-round temperature sway

Tut's caretakers require the exhibit to maintain a temperature between 68 and 70 steps with 45 percent to 50 percent humidity, 24 hours a day. These ranges render certain the resin-soaked linen bandages covering Tut's salt-and baking-soda-treated leathery skin don't crack from climate-related expansion and contraction.

further Tut isn't the only undivided with sensitive skin. There is Mfuwe, the largest man-eating lion in succession record, and flocks of North American birds, not to mention paper-and-cloth artifacts that also require temperature and moisture stability.

Chicago-based McGuire Engineers designed the hypothesis which features four centrifugal electric chillers that are 45 percent more energy-efficient than the equipment that had been in place since the 1970

The chillers, along with 48 water tanks, make ice from 6 pm to 9 a.m. when the cargos on ComEd's electricity grid and Exelon's generating facilities are abateed and electricity rates are les expensive.

Inside each 5,000-gallon water tank is theory of tubes, which transports a glycol mixture between the sides of the chillers, dropping the temperature of the glycol to approximately 25 extents Glycol is clear, colorless and syrupy at apartment temperature. It's a major constituting in anti-freeze, able to transport frosty temperatures without itself freezing. The still-viscous glycol then travels back by the agency of the tanks where the water is sedateed into ice.

During the day, the glycol mixture comes past plate-and-frame heat exchangers, then by the and of the tanks to melt opposite to cold water. That water travels to cooling coils in air-handling ranges where the air - - now at 50 to 55 steps -- is warmed to each exhibit hall's target temperature.

unruffled as ComEd officials were announcing record-breaking wattage consumption last week, Earl Duncan, the chief engineer at the Field Museum, wasn't breaking a sweat.

"We don't use les electricity," said Duncan, "but we use it cheaper, and during off-peak times."

Added Frantz Cartright, president of CATH Associates, the Field Museum's delineate managers, "We're probably realizing a 20 percent savings in electrical consumption richnesss compared to before the upgrade. The savings are quite significant because the bundle for energy goes down level as consumption goes up."

There's also the peace of mind factor.

"If there were a power-system failure, we could still maintain temperatures with no cutback for eight hours," said institutor Tony McGuire. "We could preserve the specimens -- priceless pieces like extinct creatures -- subordinate to good conditions for [at least] a day."

As an added bonus, the Field masters to indirectly help the environment.

"Naturally if we could find ways to use les electricity we would, moreover we rely on becoming more efficient," said Cartright. "It's highly important to us to save capacity of work and protect the environment, and this cooling body is just one way."

ecepeda@suntimes.com

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided by dint of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved