Archive
Podcasts
Following on from the recent CPD theme another avenue for easily accessible CPD is podcasts. I have started to become a bit of a podcast enthusiast since starting phase 2. Mainly to fill my 2 hour commute after repeats of the Taylor Swift album became a bit too much. Clearly there is a wealth of podcasts out there and I have to confess that I have only recently realised it is a good way to get some CPD in. There aren’t a huge number of engineering ones that I have found so far but in the interests of kicking off a list that others could add to here are a few:
NFPA: This is from the National Fire Protection Association. The organization is based in the USA, where they are neurotic about fire, and provides updates on their codes and digs into other topics. I wager that the US are a way ahead of us in considering fire protection so it is worthy of a listen.
HVAC 360: You guessed it, it’s about HVAC. Presented by a commissioning agent he explores issues and technologies. I have listened to a couple and both were interesting.
Another potential is ‘The Civil Engineering Podcast’ though I haven’t listened to it.
One to avoid is ‘Engineers and Coffee’ as it appears to be about computer programming. I listened to about 10 minutes of one episode before I fully confirmed I had no idea what they were talking about. If you speak binary or java script then you might be able to keep up…
For a slightly wider audience ‘Freakonomics’ is an interesting podcast. It explores a wide range of interesting topics with a critical eye. If others have relevant ideas, add them to the comments.
Chalk and Cheese
I am by no means the computer room cooling specialist at the design office but I have been given another computer room cooling survey job to do. When the work was suggested I jumped at the chance to actually put into practice some lessons learnt from my work at Ft McNair by repeating the process, something I haven’t had the chance to do too much of. A good tick for C4.
The job is a survey and cooling design solutions for the communications closets in the ‘big shop’, USACE’s HQ in Washington DC and the reason I was selected is again because I am the cheapest engineer in the office. This has led me to two thoughts. Why is it always the communication closets that we get called in for? And to compare the clients.
Please won’t somebody think of the communication closets!
Both at USACE HQ and Ft McNair (https://htstrial.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/the-blind-leading-the-blind/) the main server rooms are well served with independent cooling systems. However the communication closets, which largely contain switches for VOIP phones and computers as well as some AV equipment, do not have specialist systems if they have cooling at all. My thoughts of why are:
- If communication closets are added retrospectively as part of a small refurbishment dedicated cooling is either not considered or gets deleted to bring a project under budget because it is a discrete, and possibly disproportionally large, cost.
- In new builds or large office fit outs, because the rooms are small and dispersed by their nature, they are just tied into other systems. Again either because it is easy, or cheap unlike dedicated DX or VRF systems.
- Modern equipment has a higher heat density than its predecessors.
- Creeping regulation. It has been recognised for a while that server rooms require security, indeed I wasn’t allowed into one as I am a dirty foreigner. However the security regulations for communications closets has more recently upgraded them noting their risk. Therefore putting a large efficient grille in the door, leaving the door open or even just putting the switches in the main office are no longer acceptable. But asking the ‘so what’ has been a little slower…
- Any other opinions welcome.
Differing clients.
These clients really are chalk and cheese. This was highlighted by a number of the actions of the USACE HQ team.
- They invited stakeholders. Though I didn’t see who would be paying, I got the warm fuzzy feeling that it wouldn’t be an issue. The facility manager and his assistant, who understand the building which is leased, were there as well as the guys who actually worked on the systems in the rooms. And they were all engaged with the effect they wanted to achieve. At Ft McNair we had a quick chat with the FM, were told they wanted portable coolers, and palmed off with a disinterested programmer who roughly knew where the rooms were.
- They were compiling lists of equipment and its heat rejection. This really is the boring part of the job, which I would be doing, so in my eyes they can pretty much do no wrong. Ft McNair did not have equipment lists. Though presumably they would need them for other purposes than just ours.
- I won’t labour the point but they also had as built plans, answered our RFIs on the spot and were able to talk about emergency power and would research more into the availability of capacity.
So what? Well they actually seemed engaged which made the survey straight forward so, rather than measuring rooms and photographing nameplates, we were able to think and talk through wider issues and solutions. The budget is a lot smaller at $3,000, vs $50,000 for Ft McNair, and Mary has spent half of this just by spending a day out of the office. However, it doesn’t appear that access to money is an issue and as I will be doing most of the work it is irrelevant. My conclusion is not that they are doing the legwork for us because they are short of money, but rather that they are engaged with the project and want to get a positive solution.
Design management and leadership
Sorry Mike. No pictures.
You are sure to have heard this phrase before: ‘Sandhurst is the best leadership academy in the world’. I have always had mixed feelings about all that and whether we as the military are as good as the rhetoric, but maybe I’m wrong. I’m not sure if others have had similar experiences in the industry. There were plenty of ‘tense meetings’ in construction, though I can imagine more shouting goes on away from the client; I didn’t really expect it in design though.
I’m not sure if there is any more background to him but the project manager on the Ft Drum NCOA is apparently a known bully. This week’s conference call a shouting match ensued between him and the generally mild mannered design manager. It certainly wasn’t my place to jump in and so I joined my colleagues in gently turning down the phone volume and letting the storm pass. Why? The issue was about a design freeze that had been issued by the project manager due to a VE modification (cutting a 12” slice out of the centre of the building, which clearly has architectural and structural implications). The project manager was arguing that although drawings couldn’t be updated there was still other work that could be done.
So what? The issue with the management of the project in my opinion comes down to two things: communication and the long handled screwdriver:
- On the communication front the project is terribly managed. Meeting minutes are only produced because the Fire Protection Engineer and I produce them as a de facto rather than de jure Other information is continually asked about despite there being a well set up folder structure for IM. Finally, and most relevant in this case, no one had actually told my office that we were to stop modeling; which I pretty much spent the whole of last week doing!
- As for the long handled screwdriver, the project manager is stepping on the design manager’s toes. He has been directing some of the designers and clearly keeping the design manager out of the loop; linking back to communication. Also, and it may just be a bugbear of mine but he uses the word ‘I’ too much as if all the decisions are his; which clearly they are not as he is neither the designer nor the client, rather a conduit for information.
Coming back to the shouting match what really surprised me, and the other Baltimore designers, was that they were arguing in front of us. Whether there are issues in the background or not this does not appear to be the basis of good team building.
Revit Padawan
This week has been my first real foray into Revit and the force is not strong in this one. Below is the product of 2 days of hard fought CADing; it’s a good job I’m not billed out by the hour! The model is the ductwork and Fan Coil Units (FCUs) in the accommodation element of the NCO Academy. Blue is supply, Orange is return and green is exhaust.
All the duct work is sized using my new friend the ductilator. It certainly makes the tiresome job a lot quicker and easier than calculating them mandraulically! The flex duct connectors at the ends are basically cheating. However, as we have only just exited the 35% gate I’m sure there are plenty of movements to come and these allow elements to be moved independently without Revit dropping its fill. This is especially true as the zoning of the interstitial space has not been worked out yet. As appears to be commonplace we are waiting on structural to finish overdesigning beams before we can get into the important work of cutting holes in them.
On a more serious note the building was originally conceived, presumably by the architect, as being 18ft floor to floor. Ignoring the training room, and its 12ft ceiling, that will no doubt be the subject of a blog in the future; the remainder of the rooms had a mixture of 9ft and 10ft ceilings. This translated to a 9ft interstitial space in some of the rooms, something which laboratories would be proud of. Arguments about leaving it alone were that the cost of brickwork wasn’t much when weighed against the time, and therefore cost, of trying squeeze everything together. My counterargument was sustainability bringing a big fat tick in the E3 box. I was thinking of the carbon output but to translate it into ‘American’.
To back this up I did some very rough calculations in Carrier HAP (Hevacomp equivalent) which showed that on a summer design day the cooling load would reduce by 2.8% and on a winter design day the heating load would reduce by 7.3%. Sadly, due to the way LEED savings are calculated this doesn’t translate into extra points for design, however it is good for life time running costs.
So the compromise is set to dropping the floor to floor height to 16ft which, across both floors, saves 4ft. The negotiated allowances for each discipline are shown below, though the electrical engineer has agreed to let HVAC enter his cable tray allowance and he’ll work around it; sensible. Everything is conservative at the moment so maybe we will be able to shave a little more off. Although clearly the model is getting ever busier and so unless the height savings are significant I shan’t hold my breath.
In other news I’ve found someone else that uses John’s calculators.
Snowmageddon
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last week you’ve probably heard that the East Coast of the US has had some snow. The fervor of the media attention has been comparable with the chance of a dusting in London. We have had about 2 ft so the panic is perhaps a little more justified. In contrast this is considered normal in places such as the mid-west so why is it an issue for the D.C./Baltimore region.
Like most things I suppose it all comes down to risk as the area doesn’t get snow in these quantities it is not as prepared for the volume as other areas. Looking from a Facilities Management/Design Planning perspective I note a couple of things. We design drainage for 100 year rain events but also should think of the snow equivalent:
- Where to put it. Snow takes up quite a lot of space. You can compress it, but only so far. So what? In our condo there are, or should I say were, some outside parking spaces for visitors. Large grass verges have also been optimized, alongside peoples’ front gardens; any grass area is now a snow store. Also side walks, clearly Americans don’t walk so they are considered fair game.
- How to move it. Shoveling 2ft deep snow out of a driveway manually must be hard work; I can see why people died. Snow blowers are awesome for pathways and you could probably do a short road with determination and planning. Snow ploughs are a given. But the rate limiting step seems to be wheeled loading shovels or skid steer loaders. These have the capability of both heaping the snow higher and of moving it around in a more deliberate fashion than just pushing it to the end of a run. In the middle of the city dump trucks have been used to transport snow out of the narrow residential streets.
- Don’t wait for the end. 2ft of snow is difficult to manage, far easier is 1ft of snow twice. This keeps essential lines of communication open, gets everything open quicker and means that smaller equipment isn’t overwhelmed, therefore a broader range of equipment is useful.
- Drainage plans; three things on this.
- Firstly, knowing where the drains are so that they can be cleared to allow the snow melt in, by either marking them with wands, having a site plan of them or both.
- Secondly, putting drains, close to but not in the middle of the forecast snow collection areas. Close to so that there is not a long stream of water to freeze overnight, but not underneath so water can actually get down the drains. This hasn’t been done so well where I live.
- Finally, and another one that isn’t so great in our condo, is making sure there is actually a fall to a drain. I’ll leave that one as it is.
- Finally communication seems to be pretty key. I could talk about American authoritarianism but I would be descending down a slippery slope towards ranting there.
Obviously the whole experience has been harrowing being locked in with only the TMR 4 deadline for company and in no way did we get any skiing or any fun in at all.
Friday Night in Harrisburg
All new buildings are required to complete an Air Barrier Test (ABT) and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) HQ is no exception. The leakage rate is important because it indicates how much conditioned air is being lost to the outside environment. It costs money and energy to condition the air inside the building and so it is wasteful to allow it to leak out. More specifically, as the client USACE specifies an allowable leakage rate and if the building fails then the issue must be resolved. Given that the leakage rate is determined by the construction method of the building and this building is very much in the stage of finishes being applied there would be no quick fixes if it fails; so it’s important.
The test was completed on a Friday evening a couple of weeks ago with a provision for a test early on Saturday if required in order to avoid interfering with other trades as the building had to be sealed for the test. Dusk is generally considered the best conditions for testing as the dT between the building and outside is the greatest to be able to detect leak causes using thermal imagery. Sadly, as you will see below this doesn’t necessarily make for the best photographic conditions.
The test consisted of sealing up all ‘intentional’ openings, sealing a number of fans into one of the doorways and pressurising the building. The test was completed twice, first subjecting the building to a negative pressure and second subjecting it to a positive pressure. After a short while to allow the building to reach steady state it (where the pressure is not rising/falling) it could be assumed that the air leaking through the building’s skin was equal to the air the fans were blowing into, or out of, the building. The later was measured through a range of differential pressures to give the leakage rate. Whilst the an operator recorded these measurements for the first test, depressurising the building, the air tester and I walked around the building with the thermal imaging camera, and the less technical back of the hand, to identify any significant leaks. Any cold spots in the building skin or cool air blowing into the building were subject to investigation. For the second, pressurisation test, we walked around the outside to do similar but given the scale of the building this was less effective.
Fan bank 1. A second bank of 3 was put in a nearby doorway to provide sufficient flow rate to achieve steady state.
The system needs to read the same pressure at both fan banks. As the right hand bank has twice the number of fans of the left one it has twice the flow rate.
The standard.
The USACE standard is 0.25 CFM/75 sq ft enclosure, meaning cubic feet per minute per square foot of envelope at 75 Pa differential pressure. This, peculiarly for the USA is a single standard whereas in the UK we have a variety of rates to choose from depending on building usage. The units of measure in the UK are m3/hr50/m2, which is m3 per hour, per m2 of building floor area at 50Pa differential pressure. 2 m3/hr50/m2 is the UK standard for a low energy air conditioned office which is about 0.14 CFM/75 sq ft.
In an office building most of the floor area falls into this however, broadly speaking, unconditioned spaces are exempted; meaning that they have to be sealed off from the main building. Large complex buildings such as skyscrapers or buildings with significant restrictions to airflow, such as a single door separating two halves may be split into zones. The DLA HQ can be treated as one zone as there are large open plan areas and multiple stairwells and lift shafts. The building envelope is usually calculated by the Designer of Record (DOR) but in this case was calculated by the contractor, after a year of asking the DOR. The building is 309,240 sq ft, therefore:
0.25 x 309,240 = 77,310CFM is allowable for this building.
The leakage rate is tested at a differential pressure (between outside and inside) of 75Pa, which compares to 50Pa in the UK.
The practicalities of the test.
The sealing of ‘Intentional’ openings refers to closing all of the doors within the doorframes as well as any HVAC vents, kitchen flues and the waste vents. To ensure optimal pressure equlaisation within the building a few measures had to be taken:
- For every 500 sq ft of suspended ceiling at least 4 sq ft of ceiling tiles must be removed to promote pressure equalisation.
- All internal doors had to be wedged open; fortunately many aren’t fitted yet.
- The doors to the lift shaft had to be wedged open to ensure equalisation to the rooftop mechanical room.
The biggest issue was doors blowing open on the tests destabilising the pressure. The prime contractor had let all of their guys go, for the day, to ensure good running of the test having people, with some form of comms, ready to chase down open doors would have made the whole process a lot simpler. Having plenty of guys on standby would be something I imagine the RE would have got right!
Six of the nine fans used drew a maximum of 3kW. Each of the 230V circuits (the building has 110 and 230V circuits) had a 15A breaker meaning that it could only support one of these fans, or two of the smaller 1.5kW fans. This resulted in about 30 minutes of getting out electrical drawings, resetting breakers and moving extension leads around. The master electrician could have planned this prior to the test.
Results.
In the end the building passed with ease however there were still some interesting elements. The biggest loss areas are:
- Doors. Being freely moving there is always going to be a level of leakage through these. If the building had failed by a small amount then upgrading the seals would have been a way of marginally improving performance.
- Although none of the windows open, as they are penetrations into the buildings skin they act as a potential break and pathway. One window had a good breeze blowing through it that could have been sealed with a bit of mastic if required.
- Sockets and fittings, both internal and external. Again a penetration into the building’s internal skin where air can finally leak through.
- Architectural Interfaces. This would have been the main problem at the DLA HQ. Where differing building methods meet the interface can cause an issue if it is not properly sealed. An example is the auditorium on the DLA HQ which is essentially another building tacked onto the side of the main building. It was built using prefabricated panels, whereas the main building was cast in place. This had been identified as a risk in construction and was mitigated by the liberal application of spray foam.
A doorway. This is taken on the depressurisation test therefore the dark section is showing cold air blowing through the door seal.
The normal picture comparison was black. This shows an architectural interface between a precast structure and a clockwork construction with facade. As this is taken from the outside the bright yellow is showing warm air escaping.
The results came in last week showing that the building had leakages of 0.143 and 0.132 CFM/ft2 for pressurisation and depressurisation respectively. So it passed with ease in the USA, but might have only scraped through the UK equivalent test because of its complex architectural features.
Chartered – Tick VG
Nothing significant to report from site, where there is a bit of a hiatus as paperwork catches up to progress and the design office where I am writing up results of surveys. However in the sidelines I am now Chartered, as a manager. So I thought it worthy of a blog.
For those who haven’t seen 2014DIN07-093, here it is hosted from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) website.
The offer runs out in April 2016, though new direction may/may have come out. This DIN allows you to apply for a qualification from either the CMI or the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). I elected for a level 5 certificate in Management and Leadership from the CMI, which came with a year’s free membership. I elected to go with the CMI qualification as it led towards Chartering through the CMI’s fast track route and I thought that this would be a good way of demonstrating management capability in the future. Clearly I am now on the hook for both future management CPD and further professional fees, but at present I see it as complimentary to my engineering development. It also provides another independent verification on elements of competencies C – E.
I have to say the application process underwhelmed me; I put a couple of evenings into my 1200 word application form and was told I would be informed within 10 days. This turned out to be less than 24 hours which either says there was a super fast-track approval system where they see the words ‘Army Captain’ and reached for the ‘Tick VG’ stamp. When comparing the system to Chartering as an Engineer the two biggest differences are:
- Education: A level 5 certificate is clearly significantly lower than a Masters degree. This is true in volume when one considers finishing phase 1 of PET would count as a certificate. It is also true in level of thinking, with a Masters sitting at level 7 in the NVQ scale; I’m sure everyone is familiar with the term ‘Masters level learning’ by now…
- Application and interview. Whether it is the 1,000 words for the CMI, 3,000 for IMechE or 6,000+ for the ICE the form is about demonstrating applying theory into practice, experience and lying about keeping up a CPD record. The interview though I think is very different though, because of the lying piece. I spent a bit of time putting together my application but without seeing me how can the CMI verify it was me that wrote the application form or even did the work. It makes it difficult to maintain a standard.
I have not looked into any other industries to see what their requirements are but I think, unlike George Orwell’s animals, all Charters weren’t created equal. To track back to engineering the American equivalent of CEng is P.E., simply Professional Engineer. This is considered a licence and like most professional licences is administered at State level. The prerequisites are a Batchelor’s Degree and 4 years of experience. Then you are able to take the PE exam, this is a 4-hour morning paper followed by the same in the afternoon. This appears to have scarred the people in my office to an equivalent degree to Ex Longreach or Worst Encounter as it often pops up in conversation. So as far as comparing the UK and US approaches they appear equivalent to me as I think, without seeing a copy of the paper, that it will be at ‘Master’s Level’. That said, I would say that the PET course has caused me to be far more analytical as a result of writing TMRs and AERs, something I wouldn’t have got from a big exam.
Conscious that I haven’t given Mike any pictures yet, one thing that is better over here is you can buy a PE bumper sticker:
If you want one get your bids in…
In other news, don’t go to New York City in December, it is full of people. As you can see below even Picasso’s goat is unimpressed with the crowds.
Leaky Pipes
The main fun last week was that the boilers in FtIG shutdown unexpectedly. The contractor has left site temporarily making things more difficult. The issue is not yet resolved so I will blog it when further progressed. In lieu of that excitement here is a thought on sustainability/serviceability.
After the shutdowns of the dual temperature distribution piping from my mechanical room in FtIG we noticed that significant quantities of make up water are required to return the system to pressure; this means that there is a leak somewhere. To do my bit for sustainability I mentioned this to the client and was met by little in the way of enthusiasm.
Replacing the pipe work had initially been part of the scope of the project but as there was no cost benefit attached to it this element was removed to improve the pay back period of the project. This is because the project was funded based on energy conservancy it had to have a 10 year pay back period. The client that the pipes were leaking however didn’t attach a cost to this.
The cost is inconsequential now but for the opportunity to exercise my calculator I have had a stab at it. I conducted a test on site to work out the leakage rate before plunging into a heat loss calculation.
I shut off the pumps and make up water valve and left the system to rest. The static pressure was initially 10psi. To get a representative flow rate for the make up water I used the local tap off to fill a 1 gallon jug, this took on average 8 seconds.
After 2 hours I opened the make up water valve again and timed how long it took to refill the system. By now there was plenty of air in the system from the leaks and so once the valve stopped gushing I restarted the pumps to cycle the system through the air separator with the make up water valve closed to remove the air and ensure the pressure rebuilt to 10 psi. I repeated this process 3 further times until the system balanced. The time on the stopwatch for the make up water valve being open was 8:20. So
This method is clearly riddled with errors, for a start:
- Water leaking whilst I was refilling the system.
- Stop watch error.
- A static condition is not the same as when the system is operating.
- How representative the local tap flow rate test was to the flow rate of the system when nearing 10psi.
- The exact cost of energy and water; I used some figures from Ft Drum. I did an initial calculation using my electricity cost, this came out at $5,400 a year!
However the discussion has to start somewhere and some data, even with a large error value, is better than none.
Either way, had this test been done a few years ago it might have added $11,000 to the budget (or $12,500 if accounting for 2.5% inflation), which might have brought the system within the payback period. I have tried chasing down some of the early paperwork but to no avail.
More pressingly, we are due to treat the system with chemical to preserve the inside of the pipework. The contract calls for testing and topping up the system every month At 31.25 gal/hr the lost water rate is 31.25 x 24 x 30 = 22,500 gallons a month. I don’t know the exact size of the system but assuming 2000′ of 4″ pipework it would be 1300 gallons, which is about 2 days work for our leak. Therefore the contractor will be paying to completely re treat the system each month, significant quantities of chemical will be released into the ground and the treatment of the system will be totally ineffective in preventing corrosion.
I continue to beat my head against the proverbial brick wall on this one…
Non Commissioned Officer Academy Ft Drum
The NCOA will be a mixed use building to house routine NCO promotion training, similar to the Royal Engineer Section Commanders’ Course. The building will house the instructional classrooms, administrative offices, some accommodation, an auditorium, changing facilities and personal weapons storage. It will also house a 15 ft high training area (Room 140 on Figure 1) to be used for drill practice and physical training when weather precludes it from being conducted outside.
Figure 1: Ground Floor Plan.
Figure 2: First Floor Plan
The project proposal form had to demonstrate the need for the building, which was that it will replace twenty World War II temporary structures. This will result in a better training environment and reduced utility and maintenance costs. The new building will cover 45,700 sq ft and the project value is currently set at $19 million USD. In order to justify this cost a qualitative economic analysis was executed looking at the alternatives of renovation, maintaining the status quo, leasing and new construction. The status quo was deemed to be unacceptable and other alternatives would have only been a temporary solution.
The project is being contracted as a design, bid, build and the design timetable is organised such that the build contract is due to be awarded on 30 September 2016. This is the last day of the current financial year for USACE and so allows funds to be attributed from this financial year. This presents a risk because if the contract is not awarded on this date then the money attributed to this year will need to be spent on another project or will be lost to the Garrison. I am not privy to information on other mitigating circumstances at programme level, however if some float time had been built into the design schedule this would mitigate the issue at project level. The current design schedule has the following significant deadlines:
35% Design Stop – 18 December 2015.
35% Design Review Conference – 20 January 2016.
65% Design Stop – 28 March 2016.
90% Design Stop – 2 June 2016.
95% Design Review Conference – 28 June 2016.
The date of the planned 90% Design Stop means that I should be able, negating the chance of delays, to see the design work through to this stage.
Given the date of the 90% Design Review Conference it is unlikely that I will be able to see the design through to this point, although the most important experience will have been gained by this point on the design front. The contractual affairs will be dealt with by USACE NY District so there will be no loss of experience by leaving at the 90% design stage.
The design team structure being used by USACE for this design is spread across two USACE Districts and a Design Consultant located in three separate States. The project and the Project Manager is stationed at Fort Drum, NY and is part of NY District. Therefore the design contract naturally falls to NY District’s Engineering Division. Therefore the Design Manager, Architect, Plumbing and Electrical elements are from NY District’s Engineering Branch. Because NY District had insufficient staff to conduct the design of the structural, civil, mechanical and fire protection elements requests were sent to the other Districts within North Atlantic Division. From these Baltimore District was able to staff the Mechanical and Fire Protection elements. As no districts within the Division could support the civil and structural elements these were subcontracted to Pond Consulting, a design consultancy based in Ft Worth, Texas.
Because of the extended lines of communication liaison has already been difficult. A notable occurrence was the design model having to be rotated as it was created 180 degrees out of orientation. As each of the designers across three sites had different linked models this took a week of emails and phone calls to rectify. The issue would have been mitigated against if a central BIM manager was employed on the project, however neither Baltimore nor NY District currently have the post filled.
The new building is to be built on Fort Drum which is in the North of NY State for which the design temperature ranges from a winter design temperature of -30°F to a summer design temperature of 90°F. Significant measures, such as the inclusion of glycol in the hot water system, will have to be taken to ensure the winter design temperature can be met without causing equipment damage.
My part in the design will be to assist the mechanical engineer, Tim Wheeler, in the design of the HVAC system for the entire building. Work for the 35% design is a simple design analysis, setting out of the mechanical rooms, as shown in Figure 3, and specifying the HVAC system type. At the 35% design the room layouts, and therefore volumes, should be fixed to allow the detailed design to take place.
Figure 3: Mechanical Room at 35% design, the eagle eyed will notice that it does not line up with the ever changing floor plan. hence waiting until the 35% design stop to continue.
To 35%, as they are discrete elements I have been given a radiant floor design and a Building Lifecycle Cost Analysis (BLCCA) to complete. The radiant floor will be in the training area (Room 140), which is to be used when it is too cold to train outside. The BLCCA is to assess the viability, or otherwise, of using a Ground Coupled Heat Pump (GCHP) system in place of the air-cooled chiller and 70% of the heating load, the remaining 30% being supplied by a Natural Gas powered boiler.
And that’s the situation as it stands at the moment.
Anywhere but Chatham…
Phase 1s,
Following up from Fran’s blog about Perth I thought it worth mentioning that there is a wealth of information in the blog archive about transitioning to phases 2 and 3. Looking back you will see that the blog has been a cathartic release for students past and present to whine about their experiences both overseas and when venturing out of the Army cocoon in the UK.
USACE:
https://htstrial.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/usace-not-a-place-in-china/
https://htstrial.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/progress/
Matt Fry had some difficult administrative times and is very articulate in presenting them!
BP:
https://htstrial.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/lang-time-nae-see-far-hiv-ye-been-min/
https://htstrial.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/getting-started-in-aberdeen/
For the design office to come:
https://htstrial.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/what-colour-is-my-parachute-or-do-i-have-add/
For anyone ending up in the US Brad and I have tried to ‘tag’ our posts so that they are a little more sortable. It may be something we could do in the future to separate the E&M blogs from the unending pictures of concrete too.
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 