AC-02-12-1 -- A Survey of Common Faults for Chillers

Before investing in the development of automated fault detection and diagnostics (FDD), it is important to identify the most important faults to consider. This paper presents the results of a fault survey that was conducted among the major American chiller manufacturers in order to identify the most common and expensive faults that occur in chillers. The fault data are presented in terms of frequency of occurrence and relative cost to repair. Based on the fault survey, many of the important and difficult to diagnose chiller faults were identified.