Assignment 4 comments

Assignment 4 went well. If trends continue from year to year, most of you will be, or already have, selected a structural concentration, and as such, this will be the majority of your experience with HVAC during your career.  
Hopefully you all have some familiarity with the various HVAC systems and their applications now, and can make basic analysis and design.  We were glad to see that most of you used EQuest in your analysis.  This can be great for general, quick calculations, but can also be highly customized to provide accurate analysis as well.

A couple things to note:

1.  When sizing members, keep in mind what sizes are available.  For example, you will not be able to find circular duct work 1.38675 feet in diameter.  When your analysis returns a required size, try to find the next readily available size up that will work.  This is not really pertinent to this project, but in the professional world, you will need to identify members that can actually be purchased.  This is true for all design, be it structural, HVAC, Architectural, Plumbing, ETC.

2. When designing HVAC systems, a combination of multiple systems is almost always used.  While selecting a main system is acceptable for this assignment, most buildings utilize as many as 4 or 5 different systems.

Overall, a good job, and good luck moving forward.

Thanks,

Brad & Steve

Storm Water Approaches

In class I outlined the main approaches to storm water management.  In the way I phrased things I may have been unclear, so I’m summarizing issues here.

Basic Requirement by Water Department

• The first inch of rain that falls on a site must be retained for at least 24 hours.

What This Means In Practice

• The portion of the site that is sufficiently pervious may be eliminated from calculations
• The designer must address only the portion that is impervious for calculation purposes
• The formula would be = Aimp * 1” / 12 = CF of water to address

The Primary Design Methods are

• Green roof
• essentially making that roof surface pervious for storm water purposes
• An overflow is provided for a large storm event
• Rain Garden (similar to Bio-Swale)
• Area with crushed rock below grade allowing water to be temporarily held in the voids. 
• An overflow is provided for a large storm event
• Detention Pond
• A depression in the earth that fills with water in a storm even and either drains off slowly over time and/or is absorbed into the earth
• An overflow is provided for a large storm event
• Cistern and Reuse
• A storage tank sufficient to hold the necessary volume.
• The retained water is used by a building for various purposes, often with treatment
• An overflow is provided for a large storm event

Senior Design Presentation Calendar

Here’s the link to the unofficial calendar of senior design presentations.  It’s best viewed in Week view.  You’ll see the full information by clicking on any entry.  Note that a few titles may have changed.