This Day in History (1978): AC Plant being commissioned

From the April 5, 1978, edition of The Arabian Sun

There's a new AC plant in Dhahran — bigger and brighter than any other.

Located next to the new Dental Clinic, Plant No. 7 is the first Aramco AC plant to sport a chocolate brown and bright white cooling tower, and is the only Dhahran plant capable of chilling 3,000 tons of chilled water at any one time.

It's the biggest of all the Aramco AC plants," says Khalil Barakat of the Community and Industrial Facilities Projects Department/Utilities Projects Division, explaining that the new plant will be commissioned this month and will be in full operation in early June.

According to Barakat, Plant No. 7 will primarily serve the new Health Center, but like all Aramco AC plants, it also will be tied into the existing AC system to compensate in case of a shortfall in other areas.

"All AC plants work on the same principle," says Barakat. Water of about 53 degrees Fahrenheit is chilled by means of chilling units to cool the water to 45 degrees, then pumped through a closed loop system to Aramco offices and homes to cool the air, ideally to 75 degrees and 50 percent relative humidity.

The water then returns to the AC plant and the cycle is repeated.

AC plants throughout Dhahran are interconnected by a piping distribution system by which valves can be opened or shut according to fluctuations in demand in the various areas. With the addition of Plant No. 7, total AC capacity in Dhahran will be increased to 14,050 tons.

Caption for top photo: Now being commissioned near the new Dhahran Dental Clinic is AC Plant No. 7. Project engineer Khalil Barakat is seen in foreground of the brown and white cooling tower where fans in each of four cells cools 3,000 gallons of water per minute.

Also on this date

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1949 - A hospital fire in Effingham, Illinois, kills 77 people and leads to fire code improvements in the U.S.

1945 - Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito signs an agreement with the Soviet Union to allow "temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory"

1936 - An F5 tornado kills 233 in Tupelo, Mississippi

1910 - The Tranandine railway connecting Chile and Argentina is inaugurated

1792 - U.S. President George Washington vetoes a bill for the first time in American history