The Brooklyn Developmental Center’s 10 air handler units (AHU) were showing their age and needed replacing. H2M designed the new units to provide a total of 128,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of air and an equivalent of 484 tons of cooling (1 ton = 12,000 BTU/hr.).
The design included sizing each air handler to serve a different zone in the building. Variable frequency drive fans were selected to provide soft starts for the motors and to vary the flow of air through each zone. The new air handlers were tied into the existing ductwork, diffusers were balanced and airflow was corrected after third party commissioning. All units were tied into a central plant loop, which provides the hot and chilled water throughout the campus.
This cool job was topped off with the installation of a building management system (BMS) tying the new AH units into two front-end user control panels in the mechanical room and the plant manager’s office. The BMS can also be controlled via the internet.
