Emergency power for financial data centers

For any facility that handles key financial data, 100% up time is a must. When there is a power event, this kind of reliability depends on a seamless system of transferring power from primary to backup systems.

Rethinking high-rise egress, top to bottom

Good egress design was fairly simple when high-rises first became popular: Provide enough stairways and doors for people to get out, and designers were set. Not true anymore—Sept. 11 changed all that. Now engineers must think about reinforced stairways, evacuation by elevator, and mass notification systems.

Greening the Caribbean

Standard Refrigeration Co. Inc.'s Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, facility was getting old. Real estate costs were skyrocketing. The shared office and manufacturing space just wasn't cutting it any more. The mechanical/electrical contracting firm, founded 60 years ago, had to move. But firm officials didn't want just to build a new facility—they wanted a unique, sustainable building.

2007 Product of the Year

2007 MVP — Received most reader votes online: Dual flush toilet Ultra Flush technology uses the standard water supply to pressurize air inside a toilet tank and drive water into the bowl with accelerated force, thereby conserving the amount of water required. The dual-flush model incorporates two flush buttons: the long flush uses 1.

Cabling Innovations

A few years back, it seemed that whenever engineering professionals talked about innovations in cabling, the topic was focused on new offerings in fire-rated cable, and on the newest UL-certified cable product for fire and life-safety systems: ceramified circuit integrity (CI) cable. Certainly, there continues to be advances in this area.

Industrial Energy Stars

Owners and managers of manufacturing facilities used to be heavily focused on managing the costs of process and production. They always were thinking about lean manufacturing and 'six sigma.' And while energy efficiency—and cost—is a concern, they tended to defer to others on the issue. But with programs like the EPA's ENERGY STAR geared toward the plant, the best and the brightest ...

Academic Reliability

In order to handle future electrical demand, a major scientific university (name withheld by request) in the Boston metropolitan area undertook an ambitious program in the last few years to upgrade every facet of its power distribution system. As one of the premier technical engineering research and educational institutions in the nation, the school is well aware of its critical need for ensuri...

Variable Refrigerant Systems Make for Zoned HVAC Control

Several manufacturers offer variable refrigerant volume or variable refrigerant flow (VRF) HVAC systems. And while there are differences among the various systems, all of them react to changes in heating and cooling requirements by varying the flow of refrigerant. This is accomplished by using inverter technology to vary the speed of a compressor, or by making use of multiple compressors of var...

Health Code

The whole is the sum of its parts. And nothing demonstrates this old maxim better than the seamless integration of engineered building systems at the recently completed Center for Health & Healing at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland. “The building has so many different kinds of systems.

A Show of Power

With enactment of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 last year, the power industry was dealt a new hand in the power generation game in coming years. This year's PowerGen International, which convenes Nov. 28 through 30 at Orlando's Orange County Convention Center, will provide some answers to attendees' questions about the new power picture.

Security Alert: San Diego Hosts ASIS

This year's ASIS International 52nd Annual Seminar and Exhibits boasts almost 900 participating vendors, featuring more than 200 new products for life safety and security. Here is just a very small sampling of products to be featured at the show, which will run from Sept. 25 through 28 in San Diego. Explosion-protected cameras for hazardous environments are CSA/UL-certified to Class I, Divisio...

Gateway to China

The RJA Group has been building a presence in China for more than a decade, a success story that offers lessons for other design firms wishing to go international. The following is a Q&A session with three of RJA's major players in the China market. Martin "Mickey" Reiss, P.E., president and CEO of The RJA Group, parent company of Rolf Jensen & Associates, is based in Boston.

Cutting Energy Costs At the Plant

The owners and managers of manufacturing facilities are often heavily focused on managing the costs of process and production. They're thinking about lean manufacturing and "six sigma." And while energy efficiency—and cost—is a concern, they tend to defer to others on the issue. By some accounts, industrial applications account for 90% of all cogeneration systems. Why is cogen particularly attractive for industrial facilities? "Industrial facilities, manufacturing and processing, are excellent candidates for both topping cycle and bottoming cycle cogeneration," says Syed Peeran, P.E., Camp Dresser & McKee, Cambridge, Mass., "because they require significant amounts of process heat in addition to electric power.

AHR Expo 2006 Heats Up Chicago’s Winter

The AHR Expo returns to Chicago's McCormick Place for the first time in three years, from Jan. 23 through 25, bringing more than 1,800 exhibitors from 31 countries. In conjunction with the ASHRAE 2006 Winter Meeting, the expo promises thousands of new and upgraded products. This year's show will feature educational sessions on SEER 13, sustainable building initiatives and much more.

Lighting Up Patient Morale

Adjacent to the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah now stands the 289,000-sq.-ft. Huntsman Cancer Hospital (HCH). First-time visitors to the facility might get the impression that they are entering a luxury hotel rather than a state-of-the-art cancer treatment and research hospital.

Universal Approach Could Make Tub/Shower Valve Choices A Whole Lot Easier

It may seem strange to someone who isn't in the plumbing business, but it's not uncommon for installers of tub/shower valves to put in the wrong valve—even when designers have gone to great lengths to specify the required valve type, according to Paul Patton, senior product development manager at Indianapolis-based Delta Faucet. And there are a lot of products on the market today to be confused by. "There are many more types of shower systems on the market today—and users want to do many more things with their showers," says Patton. Just as an aside, Patton claims that on average, Americans spend eight minutes per day in the shower. In addition to the all-too-common problem of the wrong valve being installed, when it's time for a retrofit and a new type of valve is being installed, there is also the time-consuming work of going into the walls to make alterations to the concealed plumbing. But Delta claims that it has developed the perfect solution. Patton stopped by our offices recently to spread the good word and brief us about a new universal valve: Delta's MultiChoice product. According to Patton, there are three basic types of tub/shower valves on the market today.

Power Boost

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is one of the world's preeminent scientific and cultural institutions. Each year, more than 5 million visitors tour the AMNH complex, which consists of 25 interconnected buildings, the earliest dating back to 1877. The existing emergency power system wasn't quite that old, but it was definitely in need of an upgrade. In 2002, AltieriSeborWieber LLC (ASW) won the RFP to upgrade emergency power systems, and what they found—both new and old—say firm principals, wasn't unexpected. The relatively new was a 1,000-kW diesel-fired generator in place to serve six buildings, including the new Rose Center for Earth and Space.

NFPA’s 2005 World Safety Conference & Exposition: Highlights from the Education Sessions

Educational sessions at this year’s annual meeting of the National Fire Protection Assn. in Las Vegas offered a wide range of information from industry experts. Some of these presentations included unique and novel ways of looking at some longstanding issues.

Hannover Fair 2005

The annual Hannover Fair, which ran from April 11 through 15 in Germany, is the world's largest showcase of new industrial and automation technology. And this year it was even bigger, with a 20% surge in attendance, despite running one day less. A total of 205,000 attendees visited the booths of 6,090 companies from 65 countries. When it comes to technology and automation, the show has everything.

Economist Forecasts a Bright Year for Nonresidential Construction

Nonresidential building construction has begun to expand, and the next three years should be good, said Jim Haughey, Ph.D., director of economics for Reed Business Information. Haughey delivered his forecast last week at Reed Construction Data’s 10th annual CEO Breakfast, held in conjunction with the Construction Specifications Institute’s national show in Chicago. Haughey pointed to a number of economic indicators that bode well for the U.S. economy in general and for the construction industry in particular.

Chicago Sprinkler Mandate: Bridging the Code Gap

Creating and revising building codes normally moves at a glacial pace—until disaster strikes and pushes authorities into action. The problem is that government agencies are often politically pressured to act fast under extraordinary circumstances and don't have the time to spell out all the details in the code.

A Quality Northwest Brew

Connoisseurs of hand-crafted beers are well aware that the American Northwest has produced many fine brews in recent decades. So, when one hears about the Brewery Blocks in Portland, Ore., it's only logical to think beer. But this story isn't about brewing lagers and Pilseners. It's about an ambitious five-block, speculative mixed- use project in downtown Portland's Pearl District, which like m...

Going Abroad

For many U.S. M/E/P engineering firms designing industrial facilities, the world is getting both bigger and smaller. What's growing is the number of international industrial projects that U.S. firms are involved in. What's shrinking are the borders and barriers to designing factories abroad—both real and psychological.

Teaming Up

Cogeneration is nothing new to the readers of CSE. However, applying wastewater to the process certainly merits discussion. The south-central Oregon community of Klamath Falls did just that three years ago by installing a 484-megawatt (MW) cogeneration plant that was built in conjunction with an upgrade to the community's wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).

A Super Job of Cooling at Virginia Tech

When Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University de-cided to build a supercomputer, it was an ambitious goal—creating one of the five fastest supercomputers in the world. But coming up with a solution for cooling such high power density required equal innovation and determination. School officials at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, planned to create their supercomputer by clustering...

Totally Digital

It's been more than 20 years since a new full-service community hospital has opened in Omaha. And it almost seems as if the Alegent Health Lakeside Hospital, set to debut in August, is the result of two decades of pent-up health-care design energy. "We wanted this hospital to have the latest technology and an infrastructure capable of change expansion in the future," says Randy Rees, operations...

Wide Open Spaces

People congregate for many reasons. Mirroring this diversity of purpose are the varied types of assembly facilities. But they all face similar engineering challenges. And in fact, many of these facilities are multipurpose, used for worship, lectures, concerts or other types of gatherings. With respect to mechanical systems, the issue is how to keep audiences—and the performers and presen...

Landfill Gas Passed to Local School

Antioch Community High School in Illinois may have achieved many distinctions during the past school year. But none can offer greater bragging rights than being the first high school in the United States to draw heat and electrical power from a local landfill. Actually, the power source is a now-closed landfill, which is only about one-half mile from the school.

Energy Wheel Puts College on Efficiency Roll

When Haverford College in Haverford, Pa., decided to build its new Integrated Science Center, school administrators wanted the facility to fit the campus' classical look. But nostalgia for architectural style didn't carry over to the HVAC. In fact, school officials made it clear to designers from Princeton, N.

Credit for Smart Lighting Controls

MasterCard International is one of the top credit card companies in the world. Over the last decade, along with every other competitor of its kind, it has invested billions in creating state-of-the-art data centers to manage electronic transactions on a 24/7 basis. Yet until recently, its 500,000-sq.

Efficient Distribution

Warehouses may look a lot alike from the outside, but M/E/P engineers familiar with this type of facility know that the same is not true of the infrastructure. Warehouse owners all have unique needs and requirements. And while there may be ideal types of building systems for these facilities, what is desired often conflicts with what is practical in terms of size and cost.

Be Prepared

Protecting the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a big enough job in and of itself. Managing emergency response for the rest of Los Alamos County, N.M., as well, calls for a sizable staff in a very special kind of facility. The new emergency operations center (EOC) that opened at LANL last September is said to be the first joint effort of its kind ever between a local government and one ...

Standardization Comes to CAD

There are probably few things worse in the life of a professional engineer than encountering an incomprehensible CAD drawing. The fact that so many engineers feel this way may have been a strong incentive for development of the U.S. National CAD Standard (NCS). The latest good news concerning efforts to standardize CAD is that NCS version 3.

Is NFPA 5000 in California to Stay?

People have come to associate rancorous political debate with California— even more so now, with the recent gubernatorial recall vote ousting Gray Davis. California's debate over unified building codes earlier this year carried much of the same political acrimony. Interestingly, the change in administration may well reopen the debate on codes.

Open and Shut Case

Location is everything for commercial real estate, but it's not usually something one says about a forensic laboratory. But then, the San Mateo County Sheriff's Forensic Laboratory and Coroner's Office in California breaks the mold in many ways. The facility is a highly secure and technologically innovative laboratory.

Role of the Engineer

Engineers don't need to be told how vital they are to the success of built structures. They already know. Engineers bring to projects their unique abilities to analyze alternative systems and arrive at optimal configurations for the project, based on client time and money requirements. But the importance of engineers goes beyond the immediate projects that they work on.

BACnet’s BIBBs Up Close

It was two year ago this June that ASHRAE's board of directors approved final publication of three new addenda to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135—the BACnet communications protocol. One goal of these changes to the protocol was to make the specifying of BACnet easier. To this purpose, Addendum d to the standard introduced the concept of BACnet Interoperability Building Blocks (BIBBs).

Mastering a Plan for the University

The university functions as a self-contained community, and like the planners of towns and cities, administrators must look as far down the road as they can to anticipate future needs. In the past, universities focused on architectural master plans to guide campus development, but since the early 1990s, campus planners have realized that a key to the success of an overall plan is utility master...

Fans and Blowers: Getting the Right Fit

Fans and blowers are at the heart of a facility's mechanical systems. Their commercial, institutional and industrial uses are many, including exhaust, supply, recirculation, filter, process and gravity applications. Specifying the right fan depends on a careful consideration of three key factors: speed, airflow and static pressure.

A Bullish Investment in the Future

It was during a televised broadcast of the 1971 World Series that Merrill Lynch debuted its famous "We're bullish on America" ad campaign. Thirty years later, the financial giant continues to pursue this same spirit, with a new office campus that features aggressive implementation of energy-efficient engineered systems and displays an optimism toward the future.

Verdant Horizon

Designing and maintaining a sustainable "green" building depends on an integrated effort from the entire building team. But at the heart of any sustainable scheme are engineers, because their engineered systems are the fibers that bind all elements into an integrated whole. With this supposition, CSE recently polled its readers to discover what driving—and inhibiting—factors are b...

Energy Solutions for Uncertain Times

Energy concerns, particularly in the form of price spikes over the past few years, have fueled discussion about finding new or alternative sources of energy. On the design side, it has also helped spur the implementation of cutting-edge sustainable technologies like fuels cells or solar panels into new buildings.

In Pursuit of the Perfect CAD

Design software for engineered building systems is—and always will be—in a state of becoming. Every new software enhancement is greeted with a demand for even more upgrades. This month's panel discusses the kinds of design software capabilities that engineers are looking for. CONSULTING-SPECIFYING ENGINEER (CSE): Some consulting engineers have expressed to us disappointment in the ...

Power From Above

Overhead access to power is ideal in ever-changing high-tech industrial facilities

Specifying Ends and Means

The term performance-based is commonly used to describe codes and standards that seek to define the purpose and scope of a building system, without specifically prescribing its details. Performance-based specifying pushes the concept a step further, using it to describe the nature of the actual specification that an engineer writes.

M/E Roundtable: Wiring Underfloor—Not Underfoot

Raised floors offer flexibility and scalability for wiring and cable in facilities with special equipment needs or high staff churn rate

Wiring Underfloor—Not Underfoot

Raised floors are the ideal multi-tasking system, serving both as a plenum for HVAC and conduit for electrical wiring and data cabling. Proper implementation, however, should involve a closely coordinated effort by the design team to guarantee that specifications meet the needs of all systems.CONSULTING-SPECIFYING ENGINEER (CSE): Many system designers praise the benefits of raised-floo...

Integration to the Core

Consolidation of the hospital's sterile, operating, radiology and emergency clinics called for a well-integrated design

Web Resources for Engineering Ethics

Ethics, like all other areas of philosophy, can be perplexing. It requires much research and discussion. Fortunately, the Internet is proving to be a valuable tool that enables design professionals to join the engineering community's discourse on professional ethics.There are seldom easy answers to ethical questions.

Design-Build: The Engineer’s Point of View

Design-build project delivery has opened many opportunities—and created many new pitfalls—for engineering firms. For better or worse, design-build has established itself as an approach to which engineers have had to adapt. The good news is that they've adapted well.More than 95% of firms that responded to Consulting-Specifying Engineer's 2001 "Giants" survey (CSE 8/01 p.

M/E Roundtable: The Power of Medicine

Engineers look to evolving technologies for the unique power needs of health-care facilities

Rescuing the Ozone

A recent survey conducted by the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) suggests that about half of the 80,000 chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) chillers that were in service in the early 1990s have been converted or replaced with non-CFC refrigerant units. In this month's M/E Roundtable, engineers discuss progress that has been made—and a prognosis for the future.

Energy to Spare

Energy efficiency was the focus of opening remarks at this year's American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Winter Meeting. ASHRAE officials discussed the effectiveness of the current ASHRAE Standard 90.1-1999, "Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings," and the need to both simplify requirements and push for greater energy co...

Managing Microbial Contaminants

Molds, fungi and bacteria are grabbing the attention these days when it comes to indoor-air quality (IAQ). Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are still of concern-with over 300 VOCs identified and more being created all the time through the development of new building materials-but the public, and much litigation, has focused of late on microbial contaminants.

Plumbing the Depths—of ADA and Low-Flow

A panel of noted plumbing engineers and designers discuss major issues in commercial plumbing: code revisions, compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), toilet parity and low-flush technology. Finally, they define what they feel are the major issues in commercial plumbing today in this month's M/E Roundtable.