Unprecedented Energy Savings in Laboratory Ventilation
Rob Yardley, George Yardley Company
Sustainable laboratory design has often focused on optimizing energy recovery and terminal device static pressure drop. Recent developments have made possible flow turndowns of over 10:1 at both the room level and the air handling unit (AHU) level for many laboratories. High flow turndowns allow for maximum system static pressure reduction, even with medium pressure terminal devices. Such high turndowns require increased AHU sophistication to deal with both fan performance and coil performance. These changes require more complex AHU controls, but make for an overall simplified mechanical design with a smaller mechanical footprint. Laboratories applying these design criteria can potentially reduce mechanical system operation costs to less than 10 cents on the dollar (relative to design-flow cost) two-thirds of the time while enhancing researcher safety.
Rob Yardley works for the George Yardley Company, a representative for mechanical products located in Santa Ana, California. The George Yardley Company has represented problem-solving technologies since its inception in 1960. Mr. Yardley has worked on laboratory mechanical designs for more than 20 years, assuming the role of president of the company in 2001.