Light At The End Of The Tunnel

July 14, 2021

Award Magazine, July 2021, by Robert Brunet

Sheldon Samborsky, Team Lead, Mechanical for Williams Engineering Canada, echoes the sentiments of many of his colleagues in the engineering/HVAC profession when he says of 2021, “It’s as if we’re emerging from a long, dark winter. The number of work opportunities is huge, almost overwhelming, in fact.”

Unsurprisingly, the focus of new builds and renovations moving beyond the pandemic is on superior HVAC systems, and this dovetails with the ongoing push to increase energy efficiency in a sector that has already achieved substantial gains in this regard. Williams Engineering recently completed the design of the new HCMA/DUB Architects- designed Coronation Park Sports & Recreation Centre in Edmonton. When construction is completed in 2024, the facility will include a fitness centre, multipurpose rooms, a child play space, and a unique International Cycling Union-sanctioned indoor cycling track.

Samborsky says of this project, “Mechanically, the design has lots of flexibility, and we focused on dehumidification as an objective. While this may seem strange for a city as dry as Edmonton, it was necessary given the amount of moisture that will be generated by guests working out – and it’s imperative that the special cycling track is kept in good shape, with no swelling or cracking. That’s why we went with a dedicated outdoor air and dehumidification system consisting of wrap-around heat pipe technology. This was an elegant way to remove humidity: no motor, just a neatly packaged and very efficient system.”

The wrap-around heat pipe is just that, a heat pipe wrapped around a cooling coil, with a pre-cool section placed before a cooling coil and a reheat section placed after the cooling coil. The cooling and reheating of the incoming air is such that the relative humidity is lowered from nearly 100 percent, leaving the cooling coil to approximately 70 percent, leaving the second heat pipe section. This is in keeping with ASHRAE Standard 62, which warns that if duct relative humidity exceeds 70 percent, fungal contamination can occur. The wrap-around system increases the dehumidifying capacity by as much as 91 percent while using about 50 percent less energy than electric reheat systems and about 25 percent less energy than other types of reheat.

Read the full article Award Magazine – Light-At-The-End-Of-The-Tunnel