Woodward Governor
Rockford, IL
Intern: Mark Fitzgerald
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb
Woodward Governor is a worldwide company that builds and services components
for airplanes and industrial engines and turbines. The company was started
in 1870 and originally designed control systems for water wheels. Presently,
the Rockford facility focuses on the design and manufacture of fuel control
systems for aircraft turbine engines.
The intern was assigned two main projects. The first was to help improve
the compressed air system. The second project involved researching water
chiller options for the testing building.
Anticipated Results:
The intern was able to:
- Map the entire compressed air system and identified multiple air leaks. By
fixing these leaks, Woodward has the potential to save approximately $16,500
a year.
- Evaluate options to reduce the amount of city water being used to cool
heat exchangers in the testing building. Currently the city water
is fed into the building and discharged to the sewer after just one pass
through the exchangers. The intern found that the most economical approach
was to reuse an existing chiller unit that was being decommissioned from
another building. This has the potential to save them $31,000 a year
in water costs with additional savings realized from reduced wastewater treatment
costs.
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