Traditionally, most designers size piping using rules of thumb, such as limiting friction rate (e.g., 4 feet per 100 feet of pipe), water velocity (e.g., 10 feet per second), or a combination of the two. These methods are expedient and reproducible, but they seldom result in an optimum design on either a first-cost or life-cycle cost basis.

Pipe size optimization example (click to enlarge)

The CoolTools Pipe Size Optimization Tool incorporates the above design and cost factors, allowing the designer to find the lowest cost piping system design.

For a complete discussion of chilled water plant pumping system optimization, see the CoolTools Chilled Water Design Guide.

The CoolTools Pipe Size Optimization Tool (v1.6.1) runs on Microsoft Excel 2007 (12.0) or a later release running on a compatible platform of Windows Vista or later. Installation requires a minimum of 1 MB of free disk space, but 5 MB of free space is recommended for running the program.

Known issues in earlier versions of this tool have been corrected in this new version.