Integrated Systems Testing provides increased assurance for facility owners and operators that the specified equipment has been installed correctly and has been coordinated to work properly with other facility equipment. This testing also provides valuable startup information as a database for future system analysis and equipment modification.
Evaluating the performance of facility equipment and systems under load and during emergency conditions can be considered the most important evaluation facility equipment will ever receive. The tests and inspections conducted during the IST often reveal hidden defects in design, installation and equipment or functional incompatibility issues with specifications or other systems, which can lead to serious system malfunction and down time. Integrated testing will evaluate the impact of system performance on other systems. During the IST, CST will look at interactive impacts for both energy and system reliability. A comprehensive integrated testing protocol will be designed to perform a thorough fail safe process to assure reliability during several modes of operation and load conditions.
IST Protocol
The IST protocol includes:
- Testing while under design thermal load
- Mechanical systems operation under several modes of operation
- Under normal power and during emergency power conditions
- Simulated equipment and systems failures
- Heat load capacitance testing
- Measure and log conditions such as temperature and humidity
- Fully coordinated system operations along with electrical systems