Founding
The foundation for GEA Heating & Refrigeration Technologies was laid by Willem Grasso in 1858 with his forge Willem Grasso Stoomsmederij in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. There he initially manufactured steam engines and tools, and later steam hammers and butter churns. His son Henri took over the company in 1894. The invention of margarine in 1896 gave the company a success boost and made it famous for its special margarine machines. In the same year, Grasso founded a separate division for refrigeration technology. The Second World War had taken its toll on the factory, so that Grasso had to cease production of margarine machines. After the war, Grasso concentrated on refrigeration technology. The company has been part of the GEA Group since 1991. Step by step, it expanded its product range and services through several acquisitions: in 1993, GEA Heating & Refrigeration Technologies acquired GEA Grenco, a Dutch manufacturer of refrigeration technology for the food and shipping industries, and one year later the compressor specialist Kühlautomat Berlin GmbH (KAB, formerly VEB Kühlautomat Berlin).
In the following years until the GEA Group's reorganization in January 2009, the company acquired the current specialist for industrial refrigeration technology FES, Inc. (now GEA FES, Inc.), USA; Morris & Young Ltd, London, UK; the German valve manufacturer AWP (now GEA AWP GmbH).
Furthermore, since 2009, Eurotek (now Eurotek Engineering Ltd), UK, and Intec (now GEA Intec) have been part of the GEA Group.
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HVAC system design is a subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. "Refrigeration" is sometimes added to the field's abbreviation as HVAC&R or HVACR, or "ventilation" is dropped, as in HACR.
A heat pump is a device that consumes energy to transfer heat from a cold heat sink to a hot heat sink. Specifically, the heat pump transfers thermal energy using a refrigeration cycle, cooling the cool space and warming the warm space. In cold weather, a heat pump can move heat from the cool outdoors to warm a house ; the pump may also be designed to move heat from the house to the warmer outdoors in warm weather. As they transfer heat rather than generating heat, they are more energy-efficient than other ways of heating or cooling a home.
A chiller is a machine that removes heat from a liquid coolant via a vapor-compression, adsorption refrigeration, or absorption refrigeration cycles. This liquid can then be circulated through a heat exchanger to cool equipment, or another process stream. As a necessary by-product, refrigeration creates waste heat that must be exhausted to ambience, or for greater efficiency, recovered for heating purposes. Vapor compression chillers may use any of a number of different types of compressors. Most common today are the hermetic scroll, semi-hermetic screw, or centrifugal compressors. The condensing side of the chiller can be either air or water cooled. Even when liquid cooled, the chiller is often cooled by an induced or forced draft cooling tower. Absorption and adsorption chillers require a heat source to function.
A scroll compressor is a device for compressing air or refrigerant. It is used in air conditioning equipment, as an automobile supercharger and as a vacuum pump. Many residential central heat pump and air conditioning systems and a few automotive air conditioning systems employ a scroll compressor instead of the more traditional rotary, reciprocating, and wobble-plate compressors.
An icemaker, ice generator, or ice machine may refer to either a consumer device for making ice, found inside a home freezer; a stand-alone appliance for making ice, or an industrial machine for making ice on a large scale. The term "ice machine" usually refers to the stand-alone appliance.
An absorption refrigerator is a refrigerator that uses a heat source to provide the energy needed to drive the cooling process. Solar energy, burning a fossil fuel, waste heat from factories, and district heating systems are examples of convenient heat sources that can be used. An absorption refrigerator uses two coolants: the first coolant performs evaporative cooling and then is absorbed into the second coolant; heat is needed to reset the two coolants to their initial states. Absorption refrigerators are commonly used in recreational vehicles (RVs), campers, and caravans because the heat required to power them can be provided by a propane fuel burner, by a low-voltage DC electric heater or by a mains-powered electric heater. Absorption refrigerators can also be used to air-condition buildings using the waste heat from a gas turbine or water heater in the building. Using waste heat from a gas turbine makes the turbine very efficient because it first produces electricity, then hot water, and finally, air-conditioning—trigeneration.
Johann Karl Friedrich August Borsig was a German businessman who founded the Borsig-Werke factory.
Economizers, or economisers (UK), are mechanical devices intended to reduce energy consumption, or to perform useful function such as preheating a fluid. The term economizer is used for other purposes as well. Boiler, power plant, heating, refrigeration, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) may all use economizers. In simple terms, an economizer is a heat exchanger.
Vapour-compression refrigeration or vapor-compression refrigeration system (VCRS), in which the refrigerant undergoes phase changes, is one of the many refrigeration cycles and is the most widely used method for air conditioning of buildings and automobiles. It is also used in domestic and commercial refrigerators, large-scale warehouses for chilled or frozen storage of foods and meats, refrigerated trucks and railroad cars, and a host of other commercial and industrial services. Oil refineries, petrochemical and chemical processing plants, and natural gas processing plants are among the many types of industrial plants that often utilize large vapor-compression refrigeration systems. Cascade refrigeration systems may also be implemented using two compressors.
An absorption heat pump (AHP) is a heat pump driven by thermal energy such as combustion of natural gas, steam solar-heated water, air or geothermal-heated water differently from compression heat pumps that are driven by mechanical energy. AHPs are more complex and require larger units compared to compression heat pumps. In particular, the lower electricity demand of such heat pumps is related to the liquid pumping only. Their applications are restricted to those cases when electricity is extremely expensive or a large amount of unutilized heat at suitable temperatures is available and when the cooling or heating output has a greater value than heat input consumed. Absorption refrigerators also work on the same principle, but are not reversible and cannot serve as a heat source.
Steam jet cooling uses a high-pressure jet of steam to cool water or other fluid media. Typical uses include industrial sites, where a suitable steam supply already exists for other purposes or, historically, for air conditioning on passenger trains which use steam for heating. Steam jet cooling experienced a wave of popularity during the early 1930s for air conditioning large buildings. Steam ejector refrigeration cycles were later supplanted by systems using mechanical compressors.
A stationary engineer is a technically trained professional who operates, troubleshoots and oversees industrial machinery and equipment that provide and utilize energy in various forms.
Thermodynamic heat pump cycles or refrigeration cycles are the conceptual and mathematical models for heat pump, air conditioning and refrigeration systems. A heat pump is a mechanical system that transmits heat from one location at a certain temperature to another location at a higher temperature. Thus a heat pump may be thought of as a "heater" if the objective is to warm the heat sink, or a "refrigerator" or “cooler” if the objective is to cool the heat source. The operating principles in both cases are the same; energy is used to move heat from a colder place to a warmer place.
Henri Grasso (1864–1944) was the son of Willem Grasso, founder of Grasso's Royal Machine Factories Ltd. Henri was born to step in his father's shoes. At the age of 19, he follows a refrigeration course in Mittweida, Germany with the latest developments in that field.
The Viessmann Group is a German manufacturer of heating and refrigeration systems headquartered in Allendorf (Eder), Germany. With 22 production companies in 12 countries, distribution companies and representative offices in 74 countries and 120 sales offices throughout the world, Viessmann is international in its orientation. More than 54 percent of turnover is generated abroad. Since January 2022, the company is led by Martin Viessmann, Maximilian Viessmann (Group-CEO) and Ulrich Hüllmann (CFO). In April 2023, Viessmann announced that it would sell its heat pump division to its US competitor Carrier Global for €12 billion. The transaction was completed in January 2024, Max Viessmann joins the Board of Carrier Global
Bitzer SE is a manufacturer of refrigeration and air conditioning technology. In 2020, the company, which is headquartered in Sindelfingen, Germany, earned sales of €808 million. Bitzer SE has 72 locations and, as of 2020, had approximately 3,800 employees worldwide.
The term subcooling refers to a liquid existing at a temperature below its normal boiling point. For example, water boils at 373 K; at room temperature (293 K) liquid water is termed "subcooled". Subcooled liquids are frequently used in refrigeration cycles, steam turbine cycles, and some rocket engines use subcooled propellants.
The International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), is an independent intergovernmental science and technology-based organization which promotes knowledge of refrigeration and associated technologies and applications on a global scale that improve quality of life in a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable manner, including:
Bock GmbH is part of the Danfoss Group since March 2023. The company is a manufacturer of compressors and condensing units for stationary and mobile refrigeration and air-conditioning. The products are exclusively used in commercial and industrial environments.
Danfoss Compressors GmbH was a subsidiary of the Danfoss Group, a Danish manufacturer of valves and fluid-handling products, from 1956 to 2010. It produced hermetic compressors for household appliances and mobile cooling.
