| |
Greening of Yesterday's Laboratories: Using The Concepts
of "Cradle To Cradle"
Scott D. Reynolds, CAES
Robert H. Morris, Flow Safe, Inc.
Techniques to "green" existing labs without replacement
of fume hoods. Awareness of energy conservation thorough efficient
design. Awareness of waste furniture stream during a lab retrofit.
Cradle to cradle concept.
Labs21 Connection:
Today, when we retrofit laboratories to meet the standards of "green
labs," it usually means that fume hoods, bio-safety cabinets,
and certain ventilation components will be completely removed and
replaced with new state-of-the art equipment. William McDonough,
the keynote speaker for the Denver Labs21 conference, said that
an industrial system that "takes, makes, and wastes" can
actually become a creator of goods and services that generate ecological,
social, and economic value. By simply throwing away obsolete and
non-functional equipment, rather than renewing that equipment, in
reality creates a product that is less desirable over time. Conventional
retrofits often ignore the energy wastefulness and pollution associated
with disposing old fume hoods and producing new hoods as replacements.
These costs are usually overlooked because our society at large
essentially pays for the waste.
The challenge of this particular "cradle to cradle" study
is to use ecologically, socially, and economically intelligent design
to convert existing poor-performance fume hoods into high performance
hoods. High performance is defined from a standpoint of safety,
materials, pollution, and energy. Even if the existing hoods contain
asbestos transite, use inordinate quantities of exhaust air, and
lose containment when stressed, it will be demonstrated how they
may be converted to avoid all of these pitfalls. This case study
involves a renovation of the Marshak Tower Laboratory at the City
University of New York, where a worker health and safety class action
law suit has already been filed with respect to this building and
its 183 fume hoods.
The goal of the project is to eliminate any health concerns about
the hoods while simultaneously providing an energy performance guarantee
that will pay for their correction. To make such a guarantee using
energy savings means abiding by a "no risk design policy."
To ensure performance and reduce risk to a bare minimum, our team
utilizes preemptive CFD modeling and virtual reality fume hood tracer
gas testing to challenge all lab design concepts. Benchmarking includes
preliminary lab air quality testing and assessments of spillage
from existing hoods before construction is even bid.
Energy savings can pay for the building "fix" if the
existing fume hoods are upgraded in place. We believe this new "cradle
to cradle" approach to greening yesterday's labs is a better
answer than conventional approaches. We will share what was learned
in developing this process as well as the energy paybacks that result.
Biographies:
Scott D. Reynolds, M.S., P.E., has a B.S. in Mechanical
and Industrial Engineering from Clarkson University, an M.S. in
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Rochester,
and is a registered professional engineer in the States of New York
and New Jersey. He has worked for General Electric, Xerox and IBM
before founding CAES in 1992, an engineering consulting firm specializing
in numerical analysis using CFD and FEA methods. CAES became a division
of Bearsch Compeau Knudson Architects and Engineers, PC in 1999
and then in 2006, became a group of M/E Engineering, PC. Scott has
over 25 years experience in the engineering field.
Mr. Reynolds is currently involved in the use of computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) to predict air currents, the transport of airborne
contamination, temperature stratification and particulate movement
on both the inside and outside of buildings. The particular focus
of his work applies CFD to understanding airflow in research facilities,
labs, fume hoods, electronics enclosures, and in the wind wakes
around buildings. He has completed analyses on nearly 200 animal
holding rooms for medical and pharmaceutical research as well as
many studies of chemical labs and various designs of fume hoods.
Scott has presented nearly 30 seminars, workshops, poster sessions,
and university level classes on the application of CFD on buildings
and equipment. He has also published 15 trade journal or magazine
articles and holds 8 U.S. patents.
Robert H. Morris has over 36 years
experience divided almost equally between chemical process system
design, robotic/automation machine control design, and HVAC system
design. More than 19 patents have been awarded to Mr. Morris for
design of components which cover the field of air flow, fume hood
control, fume hood design, actuators, and valve/dampers.
Mr. Morris is considered one of the pioneers in indoor air quality
with articles published as early as 1982, making his fellow professionals
aware of the project. While working with Air Monitor Corporation
as Manager of Engineering and Systems Applications, with his background
of industrial controls, Mr. Morris realized that the HVAC ventilation
applications as presently designed and installed affected the health
and safety of individuals exposed to these environments by their
presence.
Mr. Morris developed the High Performance Bi-Stable Vortex Fume
Hood and he gave the design to the fume hood industry. This hood
dramatically improves fume hood performance in both safety and energy
consumption.
Back to the Agenda
|
