Mechanical, Electrical, and Process Piping Design Strategies for a Multi-Use Laboratory Facility
Scott Atwater, Bridgers & Paxton Consulting Engineers
This presentation will showcase the mechanical, electrical and process piping systems for New Mexico's new $72 million, 196,000-square-foot (sq. ft.) New Mexico Scientific Laboratories (NMSL) building. The presentation will reflect the shared goals of the design team and Labs21 by highlighting safety, energy efficiency, and the reduction of environmental impacts and operating costs through careful system selection and design.
The HVAC system was challenged with serving multiple users, including three biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) suites, while maintaining pressure boundaries between agencies, temperature control, and safe minimum air change rates. In addition, the exhaust discharges were carefully designed to prevent recirculation through outside air intakes.
The mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems also had to be designed to achieve points toward LEED® Silver certification. These systems were designed to provide a significant reduction in energy use over the baseline building. While providing these energy usage reductions, it was important to keep laboratory safety as the prime concern. The HVAC systems, as well as providing heating and cooling for the facility, provide confinement ventilation with directional airflow to prevent migration of potentially contaminated elements from the BSL-3 laboratories. This was achieved by using an airflow control system that continually monitors room pressure relationships and adjusts air flow to maintain confinement. This dynamic system also adjusts varying airflows caused by fume hood sash position changes and door openings to allow for reduced air flow during periods of low use as well as additional energy savings.
The presentation will describe energy conservation features and airflow control strategies, as well as the cross contamination measures taken to prevent recirculation of exhaust air into outside air intakes.
The electrical systems shall also be presented, describing the low wattage lighting, occupancy sensors, and daylighting used in the project and how these were converted to LEED points. The standby generator system will be described as it relates to maintaining a safe environment inside the critical BSL suites. The laboratory power distribution systems will be described along with strategies for providing reliable and expandable power distribution at the laboratory level.
Biography:
Scott R. Atwater has 25 years of experience in providing mechanical engineering for laboratories, data centers, office buildings, and industrial facilities. He received a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University in 1985. He became a registered professional engineer in 1992. After 17 years working in Denver, Colorado, Mr. Atwater relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico and joined Bridgers & Paxton Consulting Engineers. In 2004 he became a principal at the firm. As part of his duties as principal, Mr. Atwater is a buisness unit manager for the Los Alamos National Laboratory contracts. In this role he has prepared designs for nuclear laboratories, bio-containment laboratories, data centers, and high explosive facilities. Most recently he was the project manager for the New Mexico Scientific Laboratory in Albuquerque. In this role, he managed the team preparing the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, controls, and special systems construction documents.