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US Measurement system
My biggest fear coming out here on attachment was the measurement system, besides people with guns and the MVA. It is essentially an archaic foreign language with little real utility in the modern metric world; a little like Gaelic. The best way to deal with issues like this is obviously to avoid them that is a little difficult here so I’ve had to just roll with it and enjoy the chaos.
This blog is not meant to be a definitive list of all forms of measurement, for that there is Wikipedia, rather a quick run down of the ones I’ve come across to help anyone coming out here on attachment in the future and also anyone that finds themselves in the economic shadow of the USA. Places, as Nick West has found out, like Montserrat use the US measurement system because the US is their chief supplier.
A few things to note are: firstly, the US measurement system is that it is not the same as British Imperial measurement. It’s mainly the same but not always, so beware! Secondly, the descriptions of how they came about are entirely logical as a unit of measure from when they were thought up. They just don’t really combine together quite as well as metric when combined and some funky factors start coming out. The big danger in trying to convert backwards and forwards is that calculator errors start to add up and cause issues with suppliers trying to over charge you for ‘non standard’ items.
The simple ones:
Feet (ft or ‘) and inches (in or “): Simple stuff, 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard. When you start to go smaller than an inch fractions are often used. On drawings the rough rules are: less than 2’ all measurements will be in inches only, after that feet and inches are mixed.
Pounds (lbs): 0.454kg. Straightforward, there is no use of the stone, but the hundredweight is used which is, as one might imagine, 100lb or 45.4kg.
Liquid Measure: Mainly for cooking and fuel to be honest but kids are taught: ‘two cups to the pint, two pints to the quart, four quarts to the gallon.’ Key points to remember here are that both the pint and gallon are smaller in the US than in the UK. That means that the people are less accomplished drinkers and that cars seem less efficient (not the only reason they seem less efficient!). A US gallon is 3.79l and a pint is 473ml.
Fahrenheit (F): The weather is as much a topic of idle conversation as it is in the UK. The difference being that out here it swings wildly across the seasons but the conversion is pretty straightforward. Fahrenheit = 1.8xCelsius + 32.
Where it starts getting interesting:
CFM because it takes too long to say cubic feet per minute is used for airflow in ventilation systems. 1m3s-1 is 2119fcm; which is close enough to 2000 for mental arithmetic.
PSI is pounds per square inch, which we are used to for car tyres etc. When speaking about gauge pressure it must be remembered to add 14.6 psi for atmospheric pressure to get the absolute pressure.
And onto my favourites:
BTU stands for British Thermal Unit, which I have personally taken the blame for on a number of occasions already. For dinner parties it is the energy required to heat one pound of water by one Fahrenheit. It is equivalent to 1055 Joules, fortunately close to 1kJoule!
Ton. Also called a ‘ton of refrigeration’ this is the heat absorbed by melting a short ton of pure ice at 32F in 24 hours. Out here it seems to be exclusively used for large chillers in HVAC units but is equivalent to 3.5kW.
Footcandle (fc). This is a measure of illuminance and is simply the light given out by a candle at a foot. This shows the weakness of the customary units as illuminance should be measured as luminous intensity per unit area. Fortunately its difficult to measure this with any more than10% accuracy and 1 fc is 10.7lux so close enough to 10 for measurement.
So that’s ‘how for now’. I assume some imperial units are still used by the old and bold out on site in the UK as that’s how people learnt their trades. What is it like in Australia? I’m sure Howard and Brad will have seen some pretty funky civil units! Please feel free to add any more in the comments section that people have seen. I will try to keep this up to date more as I go through the attachment.
Fort Indiantown Gap
Fort Indiantown Gap (FtIG) is a U.S. Army post primarily used as the Pennsylvania National Guard Headquarters and main training facility about 25 miles North East of Harrisburg. It is also the location of another project I am involved in/running.
Map showing Fort Indiantown Gap
As part of America’s war on greenhouse gas emissions, or perhaps their fear of other people controlling energy resources, FtIG is converting from a reliance on oil to natural gas as it’s main form of heating energy. This is in common with a lot of other Department of Defense (DoD) sites and is as a result of an executive order issued by the great environmentalist George Bush. From this two questions should spring to mind; the first of which being how old is the executive order, well it’s from 2007. The second possibly has more to do with George Bush’s politics and for that discussion I will have to refer you to the kebab shop in Kingston upon Thames.
Either way, as a result one of the boiler rooms at FtIG requires a replacement of its 2 x heating boilers, domestic hot water boiler, their pumps and most of the pipework within the plant room as well as cleaning the chiller pipework. The existing system was installed in 1975 and has been somewhat tampered with, although not completely refitted it appears so, with a 15 year design life, is on its last legs. Below the diagram shows the as built drawings of the heating and chilled water systems with my annotations for the summer and winter conditions:
Winter Condition
These systems have three outputs, as shown in the winter condition: firstly to the underground pipe network feeding the Variable Air Volume (VAV) terminals in the building with either hot or cold water depending on the season. Secondly, due to the removal of the Heating and Ventilation (H&V) Unit (bottom right) a single unit heater is supplied and thirdly the air conditioning unit within the plant room which supplies ducted air into the building. What is significant about this system is mainly that the first output consists of a single, two pipe system supplying either hot or chilled water. Therefore in the seasons of spring and autumn when the requirement of the system is likely to vary between heating and cooling throughout the course of a day the system will have to cool the water within the pipework before having any effect on the building.
So are we going to fix that, hell no! Currently the design is merely to replace like for like despite there being a reasonably simple solution. This appears to be due to the ’colour of the money’. The money funding this project is only supposed to fund improvements in efficiency rather than improvements in performance.
To see what the actual cost would be I decided to do a calculation, so assuming the 3” pipe is 1km long, the water is of density 1000kg/m3 and would have to be cooled from 80°C to 10°C.
Water Volume in pipes: V=length x π r2 = 1000 x π 0.03752 = 4.42m3
Water Mass in pipes: m = ρV = 1000 x 4.42 = 4420kg
Heat loss required: Q = mCΔT = 4420 x 4.18 x(80 – 10) = 1293MJ
Converted to kWh as that is what electricity is billed in: 1293000/3600 = 359kWh
Assuming the fort pays the same as I do per kWh the cost is 13c/kWh, therefore:
0.13 x 359 = $46.72 per time the system is cooled down. So if this occurs 30 times during each spring and the same each autumn, that is 60 occurrences per year, costing $2,803.
Whilst in ‘calculation mode’ I thought it worth looking at the time it would take to cool the loop down to determine the response of the system. So assuming a 60 ton chiller (from a combination of the drawings and a SWAG):
Power in KW = 3.5 x Power in tons = 3.5 x 60 = 210kW
t = Q/P = 1293000/210 = 6,161s or 1:43
So at the point that the system determines to go from heating to cooling it will take nearly 2 hours for the system to start to have an effect, not ideal on a hot spring day. In payback period terms it is probably in the same region as Mike’s windows. However, like Mike’s windows the system will probably be in position for long past that time period and in the mean time it will produce an enhanced product and save the environment a little, which would surely be good enough reasons on their own. So what, well it seems like a sensible idea to me but I imagine the issue of the funding will be what prevents a logical decision being made. Sadly if we don’t implement something it will be a kick in the teeth for me on competence E3 but hopefully my case here is an element of evidence enough for that!
In other news Jo is now the proud owner of a Maryland State drivers licence. Her test consisted of backing into a parking bay followed by a short cruise around the block completing both left and right turns at four way stops. No traffic lights and she didn’t get above 25mph. Jo was expecting to have to parallel park the car at some point but apparently that was taken out of the test last week because too many people were failing; words fail me!
The invention of looking
Another day another project. I have started to become increasingly involved in ‘Building 2001’ in Harrisburg, which is the home of the enormous Eastern Distribution Centre (EDC). I say increasingly involved, though yesterday I narrowly avoided arrest, more about that later. The building is pretty large, mainly dominated by a warehouse but with an admin section about twice the size of Denison strapped to the side. The current contract is to replace the roof, change some lighting, improve the ventilation and replace, more or less like for like the HVAC system. And so far the most important lesson I have learned is: Avoid dealing with refits wherever possible! I will expand.
To follow on from Guz’s theme of invention and Rich’s point on people actually leaving their desks to look at stuff. Two things this week have lead me to believe that the designers didn’t actually bother coming to do a detailed survey of this huge building before cracking on with their designs and just assumed the as built drawings were complete and correct.
The building has three plant rooms. The main plant room has the steam distribution and the main elements of the chilled water distribution. The other two smaller plant rooms each service their respective admin floors with an Air Handling Unit (AHU) and some minor switchgear. As it begins to get warm here we are starting to cobble together a temporary system whilst we wait to get the main cooling system on line. So as we were talking through the system in a meeting, so at least better than a chance conversation, the contractor stated that the plant room housing the ground floor AHU was getting really hot; suboptimal in cooling season. We asked why and he said it was obviously because of the two condensers that were stationed in there from some retrofit air conditioning systems.
Just heating the room that is trying to cool the rest of the floor. Outside is a mere 20′ away.
Some pipe hunting later and we found that these fed two computing classrooms that had obviously required extra cooling at some point in the last 10 years. Checking the contract these aren’t to be replaced. Now I haven’t checked the as built drawings, but I don’t need to because the photo above clearly shows exactly where these condensers are. So my question is, which idiot put them there and which idiot decided to leave them there in a comprehensive refit of the building’s mechanical equipment. My conclusions are that it comes down either to incompetence or money. But, based on the next example, it is difficult to say it was just a cost saving measure as incorporating a couple of extra outlets into a room to increase the cooling capacity would have been pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things: I think the designer didn’t know they were there.
So to observation two. The biggest reason the air conditioning system is not running is that the cooling towers (condensers) on the roof aren’t connected. This is because someone forgot to design the structural steel to hang the pipes from. So due to the rising mercury we have hired a trailer mounted condenser, complete with pumps. So the question is merely what size?
After a chat between the contractor, mechanical engineer and myself we decided on 500 tons, ordered it and it arrived. When it turned up we proudly went out to observe our $40,000 a month lease and the installation electrical engineer asked when the other one was coming? And that was when email tennis started.
The 500 ton temporary system in the foreground. The new chillers (1300 tons) up high.
The original system was designed at 1800 tons (2 x 900 ton cooling towers) and in the design guide produced by the design consultant there was a magical figure of 1220 tons as the load. The new system is designed at 1300 tons and so the installation decided 1000 tons was the minimum possible. The installation engineers therefore stated that our temporary chiller would simply not be large enough and kicked up a stink with explanations of the old system working flat out and hardly being able to keep pace.
So the proof will clearly be on Tuesday when the system is turned on and the temperature is set to be in the high 80’s for the week. However, I will justify our decision now. The contractor has worked on this building for the last 2 summers and swears that there has only been one cooling tower operating at a time; indeed last year one of them was out of service. He also said that when he removed the old cooling towers he’d called the manufacturer with the serial number and asked the size: 600 tons (for some reason it wasn’t on the nameplate). Additional factors are a number of smaller AHUs have been removed and the temporary power supply wouldn’t run a 750 ton unit. When designing the controls, before my time, we had been told the permanent 1300 ton system was to give redundancy, as out here everything has redundancy.
Conclusions
Having read the design handbook for this project nowhere was there actually a calculation of the load, just an assumption with no justification. Remembering back to the design projects writing why an assumption was made seemed frustrating as it got in the way of moving onto the next calculation. However, the reasoning behind these assumptions are vital in the real world for someone to understand your calculations so they can make decisions later down the line; especially if the situation changes. This applies to references too as a reader can understand your thinking better if they can trace it back to source. It the light of contradictory evidence empirical evidence should take precedence.
As built drawings are not 100% reliable. They may be but it depends on whether someone has the time or funding to keep them up to date. In the EDC there are a number of different organisations with little pots of money doing self help projects all the time so some might not even know where to get hold of the master set of drawings; if there even is one. Thinking forward to doing DfID style projects the odds of getting BIM are pretty long! Therefore time spent on recce…
Oh and my near arrest. Well despite having been working in this building for three weeks it appears I don’t have clearance. Yesterday I tried going in through the main entrance and was told my name wasn’t on the list by the DLA Police. The building is about as secure from entrance as a sieve is from water and holds nothing remotely of interest to a thief or spy but rules is rules. It turns out I just need to present a letter that I am not allowed to see the contents of to the head of security and it should be fine! I can only imagine the pain Brad has been through and I’m pretty glad that the engineer I work with is the base commander’s wife as that probably prevented bracelets.
Health and What?
Over the last week my main achievement has been getting into the USACE computer system and completing my extensive mandatory online training. As Howard and Brad will attest to, this is a significant achievement and through efficiencies the system has managed to ‘trim’ a week from Howard’s time.
In the mean time I have managed a bit of time on site and a few meetings, which have brought home to me the differences in the Health and Safety (H&S) cultures between our Nations. In the UK I would put myself firmly in the category of thinking we have maybe gone a little too far, however out here I am beginning to feel like a H&S fundamentalist. As yet I haven’t reconciled the reasoning, as it is in stark contrast to the incredibly litigious culture out here and so that may have to be a future blog. For now I will give a few examples:
Firstly I was just shocked by this entirely logical solution to working at height: stilts! They appear to be incredibly useful for fitting ceiling grid and both plastering and painting the tops of walls. They give the users freedom and flexibility to work and apparently are quite easy to get the hang of.
Entirely logical
On the safety front, 6ft is considered working at height and my friend here is about 4ft up. That said there isn’t a specified limit on stilt height in the USACE Health and Safety Manual, just a requirement to protect falls from them of more than 6ft with a guardrail at least 42 inches above stilt height. Therefore the limitation is based on realistic feasibility rather than rules. The USACE H&S Manual stipulates that people must be trained and competent as well as floors being clear of detritus so to me, properly implemented seems an entirely sensible idea.
As the FIG site currently stands
Secondly, it is commonly known that people are simultaneously stupid, curious and lazy. Therefore it makes sense to fence construction sites to shepherd people into areas of safety and away from all the things that mean we require training, site briefings and PPE when we enter a site. Below are 4 very crude layout sketches of the Fort Indiantown Gap (FIG) boiler replacement site showing: the current site, the contractor’s ‘plan’, my plan and the compromised solution.
Their plan
My Plan
The project is quite small and all of the actual engineering will take place inside the building, which is a plant room, so in terms of danger to the public it is not immense. However there will be deliveries, a lay down area and probably some work such as metal cutting done outside of the tight confines of the plant room. As people will, twice a day, walk to and from their cars through the site it seemed sensible to enclose the whole site with a fence to protect people from these dangers and themselves.
On a second level, we appeared to have different ideas of what a fence actually is. My idea of a fence is 8ft high Heras fencing, theirs a 42” high orange barrier fence which is analogous to mine tape at 42”. Whilst I admit it will stop most Americans, including the contractor’s quality manager, to me it still leaves the thought of shortcutting through site open for some people. On a small project like this overheads are clearly tight and there is an obvious cost differential I can understand the reasoning; however the cost of a single litigation event will not only dwarf that but the entire $500,000 contract value. A compromise was achieved and all of my visits will now involve a visual inspection of the fence.
The ‘solution’
Finally, Brad, Danielle, Jo and I took the obligatory visit to Intercourse, primarily to be able to check in on Facebook and with the secondary aim of seeing some Amish people.
Cue childish sniggering
But, the learning never stops so behold our amazement at house demolition Amish style! It was clearly a big deal as there was quite a crowd, although I was quite disappointed by the looseness of their morals to be using a telehandler that clearly has electrical components, although barely. Apparently it is okay if it is ‘for business’.
If only I could safely yet quickly take down this house
How about?
Looking good
All in a day’s work!
Developing
Being positioned away from London clearly Brad and I will be unable to get to any of the evening Institution lectures to broaden our scope as Engineers prior to professional review. Enter USACE’s Officer Professional Development (OPD) programme to fill that gap. The current programme to gather Baltimore District’s 15 military members is quarterly meetings of a day and an annual 3 day trip. This year’s 3 day bender centred around the civil works programme within the Baltimore District, more specifically on the restoration and maintenance of the Chesapeake Bay. Below is a quick canter through the challenge presented to USACE:
However, before the learning, the programme started with a PFA and Howard had instructed us that it was ‘tradition’ to make sure the superpower was kept in check. So after a nervous start a Brit 1, 3 was achieved; we also managed to avoid embarrassment in the later ‘Ultimate Football’ game; end to end exhausting fun.
After round 1 didn’t go their way we had to play with this funny rugby ball
Chesapeake Bay
When America was colonised the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding area were some of the first places that the settlers put down roots due to the abundance of seafood in the bay and the favourable conditions for shipping of a sheltered deep harbour. As Richard indicated during our river and flooding day in Chatham however, the impacts of firstly the Royal Engineers and later USACE building dams and developing farmland have, alongside over fishing changed the landscape. Now Maryland state must ensure that the bay now supports the industries (shipping and fishing) that have grown up within it as well as be environmentally sustainable.
Shipping is one of Baltimore’s biggest industries as it has one of only 2 ports on the Eastern Seaboard that can receive ‘Super Panama Tankers’ which require a 50’ channel. This is as a result of dredging channels and, despite biting the hand that feeds it; Maryland state law presents some difficulties to the disposal of the dredged material. Dredged material can’t be dumped in the open water of the Chesapeake Bay and new islands can’t be created within the State’s waters. Additionally all the material in the habour is considered contaminated (with heavy metals etc) potentially causing water pollution when disturbed.
Being America clearly the numbers are big: 4.5 million cubic yards (the volume of 1.5 football stadiums) per year of sediment needs to be removed from the bay channels for maintenance alone. It is 180 miles from Baltimore Harbour to the mouth of the Chesapeake and the Atlantic Ocean where the first open water dumping ground would be; this would be expensive so they don’t do it. Instead the solution is land reclamation, either extending peninsulas or enlarging islands, and as the dredged material looked as if it had all the structural properties of a soggy blancmange the land is mainly used to build nature reserves and still isn’t cheap.
The scale of the Chesapeake Bay
The current main destination is Poplar Island, which over the last 20 years has taken approximately 100 million cubic yards at a cost of $1 billion, so $10 per cubic yard, or $50 million a year. The engineering is pretty simple; build berm from sand etc, put in loch gate to drain out water, pump dredged material (80% water, 20% solids), let it settle and drain the excess water. Of greater complexity are getting the water quality to the acceptable standard to drain into the Chesapeake Bay, introducing plant species to be beneficial for wildlife and hold the island together and the liability USACE will have for the island once completed.
They are planning on handing the National Parks Service (NPS) as a nature reserve. However, the maintenance of islands made from contaminated dredged material isn’t the NPS’s Mastermind special round choice and so USACE will still be responsible, and liable, for ensuring the island maintains its integrity. Clearly in the grand scheme of things with both parties being Government departments it is merely the department best positioned to deal with the issue being responsible which is best for the Nation and Government but that philosophy is muddied by departmental budgets and politics.
Other elements of note were the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna river is now ‘full’ of silt which is going to result in more being transported down stream and into the Bay. This is again an area of liability controversy as it was built by USACE, in 1926, but is now operated by Susquehanna Electric Company (SEC). Clearly neither want to accept liability and pay the exorbitant dredging costs, though ultimately SEC has the upper hand as if they don’t deal with it behind the dam then the problem will get passed on to USACE when the silt hits the bay. From an E&M perspective, more interesting than the silt was 1950’s style sign, below.
Also the rare forethought of the 1920’s designer who foresaw the increasing need for electricity and built space for an extra 4 turbines over the 7 installed at commissioning. The original 7 turbines produced 250 MW of power, in the 1960’s the remaining 4 were installed with equal power output giving the dam an output of 500MW.
The very 1950’s sign and the 1960’s turbines.
USACE – not a place in China
So, blog 1 and I’m already going off-piste. If you are looking for engineering please wait for the next one. If Admin isn’t a place in China it is certainly a place somewhere in the USA where they eat forms in triplicate and proof read with the accuracy of Rain Man. Having been in country for nearly a month I have phonetically spelt my name enough times that Gandhi would have lost his patience; Guz I now understand your pain – never come here!
The aim of this blog is to highlight a few admin points about the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) placement for the prospective Phase 1 students when choosing attachments; but written now whilst it is fresh in my mind. Be aware this is me pointing out that there are some challenges worth thinking about. However, they are all surmountable and don’t detract from the obvious benefits of being in the USA which, as we are already finding out, is an awesome country full of travelling opportunities.
Foreign Country.
So firstly it should not come as a surprise that this is a foreign country and I now truly understand the phrase ‘divided by a common language’. Our cultures have many things in common, but just as many things not in common and it varies from state to state. I can see why most Americans don’t have a passport, with such variety in their own country, but it does limit their perspective on many issues.
Locations.
My work location for Phase 2 is the Harrisburg Area Office; just outside of the town itself as for the last 3 iterations of USACE attachments. I, like my predecessors, am living in Hunt Valley making it an hour drive each way to work for Phase 2. Unlike the UK the driving is a breeze, there is hardly any traffic and it is a dual carriageway (Interstate) all the way. So set cruise control and go. There are other project locations around the Baltimore District AO and the option of moving around to wherever the work is which Brad and I will research after the summer. Brad for example is working to the South, but I will let him comment on this.
The Harrisburg commute
For Phase 3 I will be working right in the centre of Baltimore (10 S Howard St), about a home run away from the Baseball stadium. The commute for this is a short walk/drive to a station before hopping on the light rail for £1 each way. At about 45 minutes it is comparable with a London commute and shows the logic of Hunt Valley as a location.
Cars.
I was naïve enough to think that my wife and I might be able to get away with one car for the whole attachment; we can’t! Over here you drive pretty much everywhere, even if you want to go for a run, because the sidewalks just stop for apparently no reason. So with the need to commute to work for the site attachment if your partner wants to do pretty much anything, then a car is required. That said, for Phase 3 I am planning on selling the second car. So if you fancy a Golf GTi (highway miles) I’ll keep you posted! We all know that fuel is cheap out here (about a third of UK prices) and it’s actually a pretty good opportunity to buy a car you wouldn’t dream of fuelling in the UK. I get a respectable 28 miles per US gallon (33 mpg in UK gallons) and I’ll leave Brad to reveal what his Nissan Armada pushes out.
Housing.
Probably the biggest stress on arrival is housing. It is mind boggling to start off with and the time period given is tight. That said everybody out here now, and for as far back as I’ve heard of, lives in places far superior to anything in the UK SFA portfolio. The Embassy, if a little slow and authoritarian at times are supportive and will ‘screw the nut’ to ensure you are well set up on time. Hunt Valley has become the standard for the last few iterations as it is a nice town and central, based on commuting times, to the two work locations however variations are certainly available.
Aliens.
As a Gurkha 2IC I have had an understanding of some of the difficulties that arise from having a different passport to everyone else; but here as a legal alien I truly empathise. For those with wives who have an intention to work be aware that extra paperwork will need to be completed upon arrival to get authorisation. It is just a matter of filling it in and waiting but it is something to be aware of. It turns out getting a Social Security Number is pretty easy and certainly makes administrative dealings a lot more straightforward; because it fills a box in someone’s spread sheet. As for everything else, just be prepared to stand patiently in line and produce plenty of paperwork to prove your identity.
Defence Engagement.
This is very much a part of the job and the effects are very real. Not to steal his sandwiches but Brad’s attachment actually getting off the ground has come about, in a large part, as a result of his boss working with someone on the PET course 20 years ago. The impression that he gained of the officer as a ‘good bloke’ has resulted in him bending over backwards to get Brad through the administrative challenges he has faced.
That said, the act of ‘doing’ defence engagement is predominantly being professional and interacting with the people out here who are literally fascinated with you.
The Work
I can’t really comment at this stage as I haven’t done anything of note yet, but it’s here and there is a diverse range of things to get involved in.
Further info.
For the Phase 1s, Brad and I are more than happy to chat through questions or general information about the placements out here if you are interested and need more information to make a decision. Probably the best way of making contact is to drop us an email to hhcrosby@gmail.com or brad_southall@hotmail.com with your mobile number and we will give you a call back from the office.
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