UK: Daikin Applied has supplied 60 air handling units and three chillers to the 40,000m² New Papworth Hospital, which is due to be opened this month.
One of the UK’s biggest health sector construction projects, the new hospital will provide a leading-edge healthcare facility with 310 beds, seven operating theatres and five catheterisation labs.
The hospital is relocating to the heart of the newly forming Cambridge Biomedical Campus, which aims to be a world-class biomedical research, patient care and education facility on a single site. This will be achieved by co-locating bio-tech companies and the 12,000-strong community of healthcare professionals and research scientists.
Daikin Applied UK successfully bid to work with Skanska on the design and build of the 60 air handling units – 42 internal and 18 external weather-proof units – and three 360kW EWWQ water-cooled chillers. The contract included design, build, on-site installation, and commissioning and maintenance responsibilities.
Daikin Applied engineers worked with the Skanska design team, changing the original design of air cooled installation to a lower cost, higher efficiency, water-cooled solution.
The AHUs were tailor made to optimise air conditions throughout multiple spaces. The units’ modular design is said to have given the project complete design flexibility with no limitations in providing a customised solution that suits the building and plant space limitations.
The early selection of Daikin Applied as the equipment supplier is said to have allowed the professional team to develop the system solutions to optimise the available space. Spatial restrictions are always an issue for AHU’s particularly on hospitals where the strict HTM requirements apply. In the UK, Health Technical Memoranda (HTMs) give comprehensive advice and guidance on the design, installation and operation of specialised building and engineering technology used in the delivery of healthcare.
Daikin Applied worked directly with Skanska’s appointed designers reviewing duties, plant room layouts and configurations to ensure the design produced a compliant and workable solution.
The selection and use of the latest high efficiency EC fan and motor solution helped ensure compliance with new EN1253/14 efficiency standards. Single fans, twin fans and multiple fan arrays allow for increased resilience and rapid service.
The units also had particular requirements that meant a number of units had longer top sections than the bottom sections, due to the components fitted. This meant they had to be supported from underneath. Cost was a key factor considered when discussing how the top sections would be supported. Mark Parker, Daikin Applied projects supervisor, designed a supporting structure with the use of an empty AHU box section to support the top level. This box section also allowed the ducting to pass through.
