March 1, 2002

State-Of-The-Art Test Facility For North America

Mississauga, On – Riello Burners North America is pleased to announce the completion of its new state-of-the-art technical testing facility.

Riello’s decision to invest heavily in a new testing facility came in response to increasing demand from its Customers for application testing, but was also a natural extension of the decision to introduce several new products over the next five years. The first of those new product introductions, the new R-Series commercial line of burners, will unleash onto the market 64 different model configurations that will have to be matched to OEM equipment utilizing the new test facility. Other new-product development projects that will make significant use of the facility include Riello’s Low NOx oil and gas burner technology destined for the North American market. And, the setup of the new technical center will facilitate the in-house hands-on service training on the 40-Series and R-Series burners.

The new 3,000 square-foot facility contains a total of 8 test stations.

Three of the test stations have dedicated DIN-spec combustion test chambers to test-fire all R-Series commercial burners leaving the plant. The depth of each combustion chamber may be adjusted according to firing rates selected and each includes several viewing ports. The DIN-spec test chambers can accommodate burners within the range from 1,000,000 Btu/hr to 9,000,000 Btu/hr. The other stations are test bays used primarily for application testing of OEM equipment. Four test bays are each sized for a maximum of 500,000 Btu/hr and one is sized for up to 9,000,000 Btu/hr. Each station is equipped with quick-connect outlets for light-oil, natural gas, and propane; and each station is provided with separate multi-phase hydro and connectivity facilities. Each of the test bays can be used for sidewall or chimney venting applications.

The test facility has been designed with a balanced primary/secondary closed-loop hydronic system with variable flow pumps, twin dry-fluid coolers, a 5,000-gallon expansion tank and heat exchangers that utilize and divert the excess heat generated by the system to the warehouse. The system is digitally controlled for maximum flexibility. Special consideration was given to prevent condensation within the three DIN-spec test chambers by installing sophisticated mixing valves. And, motorized draft inducers and barometric dampers were installed on all stations to provide for maximum draft control during testing.

An elevated office overlooks the entire area and houses monitoring computers that have the ability to receive test data directly from the two emissions test cabinets and several portable emissions testers on the lab floor. The emissions units are equipped to read

CO, CO₂, NO, NO₂, NO_X O₂, SO₂ as well as stack temperatures.

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