“We gave Brown a near impossible deadline to get the job designed, bid and started— and they nailed it on every count.” James “Doc” Doolittle, Sr. Director, LRCVB Facility Maintenance & Engineering
On March 17, ACEC Arkansas announced the recipients of its 2016 Engineering Excellence Awards, recognizing projects that reflect client satisfaction, outstanding innovation, design complexity, value, sustainability, and other factors. Our mechanical team, led by Mark Eakin, PE, won the Energy category award for the recent Chiller Replacement project at the Statehouse Convention Center. This project, budgeted at $2 million, came in for less than $1.6 million, a savings of roughly 22%.
Design challenges included, in part:
- Space was so tight that cranes and traffic closures were required for chiller maintenance
- 4-week design phase, so construction could be completed before summer heat
- Adjacent Marriott Hotel also relies on Statehouse chillers for cooling, causing imbalanced flow/demand issues
- Project must replace inadequate controls that worsened flow imbalance, performance, and energy issues
- Project must improve performance, increase efficiency, and qualify for energy incentives
Brown Engineers used initiative and ingenuity to meet those challenges within the 4-week design phase. The team began by making a detailed building information model (BIM) of the existing cooling system and project area, based on their own field investigation.
They used this BIM to analyze the most efficient use of the existing space, including provisions for adequate maintenance and operations, and tested the project performance data of countless equipment and layout options. The result: a creative, offset chiller configuration that frees up space for maintenance and paves the way for future desired upgrades.
Our multi-phased approach minimized downtime and resolved immediate needs with this project, while preparing the site to create a truly optimal system over the next few years.
Pending an energy audit in mid-2016, this project is expected to earn over $100,000 in energy efficiency incentives. The upgrade also delivers better performance at reduced operating costs.
