THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF AIRAH SEPTEMBER 2019 · …senior engineer Shane Hutchison, M.AIRAH, shares some of the lessons from the firm’s long involvement with the Canberra Airport

SEPTEMBER 2019 · VOLUME 18.8

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THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF AIRAH

Ecolibrium

Capital investment

F E A T U R E

With a plan to host more passengers on more aircraft from more

destinations, the privately owned Canberra Airport commenced

a major development program more than a decade ago.

Today the airport’s award-winning facilities are helping to attract

international carriers to Australia’s capital, as Sean McGowan reports.

F E A T U R E

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Before local businessman and third-generation Canberran Terry Snow took ownership of the Canberra Airport from the federal government in 1998, it was a facility not befitting of a nation’s capital.

With declining facilities and rundown infrastructure, the antiquated terminal facility had suffered from decades of ad hoc renovations, additions and extensions.

Complicating matters, each end of the terminal was owned by airlines that had control over capital works, thus restricting the opportunity to undertake a major upgrade.

The collapse of major airline Ansett in 2001 allowed Snow’s Capital Airport Group the opportunity to purchase the “Ansett end” from administrators. But it was not until an agreement was reached with Qantas in 2009 that the

development of a brand new terminal building could proceed.

Termed Canberra Airport’s AirVolution, the $500 million program comprised four elements: a new 55,000m² terminal building, new road infrastructure to service the terminal, new multi-storey car parking, and the redevelopment of the aircraft parking apron to accommodate larger aircraft.

The new terminal building was built in two phases on the original airport terminal footprint. It added 10 new aerobridges, tripled the number of check-in counters and quadrupled the size of the baggage handling system to cater for modern domestic airline operators and passengers.

New retail, food and beverage outlets also improved the passenger experience,

as did the addition of over 7,000m² of airline club lounge space.

Designed by Guida Moseley Brown Architects and built by local contractor Construction Control, the $420 million project represented one of the most anticipated and significant private infrastructure projects to have been undertaken in the ACT when work commenced in late 2009.

REDUNDANCY AND SYSTEM AVAILABILITYWith the aim of developing Australia’s “greenest” airport, the terminal was designed to a high environmental standard, and employed a number of energy efficient building and mechanical services systems.

F E A T U R E

Canberra Airport’s operators had aspirations for it to be Australia’s greenest.

SEPTEMBER 2019 • ECOL IBR IUM 25

F E A T U R E

Rudds Consulting Engineers was engaged to provide a complete electrical and mechanical services package, and developed a design focussed on maximising system availability – crucial for an airport environment – while minimising energy consumption and operating costs.

“As Canberra’s climate experiences extreme weather conditions in both winter (-8°C) and summer (38°C) it is essential that all buildings designed in Canberra consider energy efficiency as a critical component” says Rudds senior engineer Shane Hutchison, M.AIRAH.

Reflecting back on a project that began a decade ago, Hutchison says it was more challenging than most due to the required capacity redundancy and system failure reliability.

To satisfy these requirements, two trigeneration systems were installed at the Canberra Airport.

The state-of-the-art systems incorporated 1.4MVA gas generators to deliver clean power to the terminal precinct as well as working in parallel with 2MVA diesel stand-by generator sets controlled via a high performance SCADA system to ensure high power reliability.

Fully automatic power control systems continue to keep the precinct running optimally under a number of fault scenarios.

“The two trigeneration systems work with back-up power plants, consisting of multiple natural gas-powered electrical generators, diesel-powered electrical

generators and battery-powered UPS (uninterrupted power supply) systems,” says Hutchison.

Utilising waste heat from the diesel and natural gas-fired power generators to produce both heating hot water (HHW) and chilled water (CHW) via two absorption chillers, these units also meet the cooling and heating requirements of the entire terminal facility.

And importantly, they provide a high level of reliability and redundancy.

With a local precinct rule preventing plant from being visible from the air – and therefore requiring any roof-mounted

LESSONS FROM THE MECHANICAL SERVICES ENGINEERRudds Consulting Engineers senior engineer Shane Hutchison, M.AIRAH, shares some of the lessons from the firm’s long involvement with the Canberra Airport development.

Work closely with the client and the project manager via mutual respect for each organisation’s input, and keep regular communications.

Document your design within your organisation so that it is clear to someone following you. Large projects can take years to complete, and changes in personal can occur over that time.

Sell the benefits of quality and reliability to your client, users, contractors – everyone. It will be cheaper in the long run.

Work methodically through all of the “what if” scenarios and pay equal attention to all user requirements – not just your favourite features.

26 SEPTEMBER 2019 • ECOL IBR IUM

equipment to be screened or alternative locations found – an individual solution had to be found for each item of plant.

This requirement, in part, led to the trigeneration plant being located in an external tower separate to the terminal building. The central energy plant was located in plant rooms in the basement and rooftop of each tower.

This layout minimised reticulation distances, provided for a high level of redundancy and avoided noise and vibration transfer into the main terminal building.

Items of central plant requiring limited ventilation and generating minimal vibration, such as chillers and pumps, were located in the basement plant rooms. Hot water heaters were located at roof level to reduce HHW reticulation requirements and accommodate flue discharges.

As well as making construction easier, this arrangement continues to aid maintenance accessibility because all access is “landside”, thereby reducing security clearance issues.

Hutchison says the basic layout of the terminal’s mechanical services plant is mirrored from one side of the terminal to the other, with both sides interconnected.

“This is so that either side of the building can be served by either plant room, providing more cooling redundancy,” he says.

The benefits to this design included a more easily staged plant installation following the staging of the terminal construction, and uniformity in equipment for ease of maintenance. It also ensured high operating efficiencies by loading plant equipment to its highest efficiency points at all times.

“With the plants combined, the whole of the airport is covered with a high level of electrical and mechanical redundancy, of varying coverage,” Hutchison says. “For example, the cooling plant has a higher level and capacity of redundancy

than the heating plant, as it serves both comfort conditions and critical operational equipment.”

CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units, powered from the generator-backed electrical sources, also use a combination of CHW and condenser water for heat rejection to ensure maximum redundancy.

Multiple ventilation and cooling services have also been used to ensure any facilities that combine to provide power to the essential services switchboards are protected under multiple failure modes.

F E A T U R E

A precinct rule prevents HVAC plant from being visible from the air.

TRIGENERATION TODAYWhile many projects have turned away from natural gas as an energy source – perhaps due to rising gas prices, but more likely the growth of renewable power available both locally and through the national electricity grid – trigeneration systems still have a role to play in the right project.

According to Rudds Engineers’ Shane Hutchison, M.AIRAH, trigeneration is still a means of providing a cost-effective solution to meet the electrical and mechanical services needs of buildings.

“Not every building will have a descriptor as narrow as ‘sustainable’, as they will need to do more,” he says.

Specifically, he points to defence, data centres, critical services and other infrastructure of significant importance and special use.

“Trigeneration systems provide a duality of energy sources that will continue to provide intrinsic system redundancy, and this will remain critical for many buildings – particularly those of significant national importance.”

TERMINAL COOLINGThe central energy plants were designed to provide the chilled water, heating hot water and condenser water for the long-term requirements of the 45,000m² terminal, and up to 10,000m² of office space in the building.

All offices were designed to the standard Government A-Grade office accommodation conditions of the time,with 5 star Australian Building Greenhouse Rating (ABGR)energy performance. This also included an adjacent 100-bedhotel and the multi-level carparks.

Plant rooms are located in the basement and rooftop of each tower.

The trigeneration systems work with back-up power plants.

28 SEPTEMBER 2019 • ECOL IBR IUM

Air-handling units (AHUs) were sized with nominal spare capacity for cooling and heating, as well as outside air variability. At the time of design, a number of future scenarios were also considered, including the addition of an international terminal, and the possibility of extended airport operating hours.

Among the energy-efficient features of the terminal building’s mechanical services design was the use of electric water-cooled screw chillers, selected to meet the best efficiency, optimum staging and redundancy requirements.

High-efficiency, condensing hot water heaters were also selected.

“Developing technology at the time meant that we needed to integrate different types of units to deliver the best efficiency and staging abilities of the heating hot water plant,” says Hutchison. “The heating plant could also draw on the heat rejected from the chillers before this energy is sent to the cooling towers.”

VSD-controlled pumps and fans were also used to ensure the plant operated at maximum efficiency while allowing for flexible operation to follow the variations in occupancy levels typical of any airport.

FLYING HIGHThe Canberra Airport terminal opened in March 2013, and was that year named the Australian Airport of the Year.

Rudds Consulting Engineers director Andrew Beattie, M.AIRAH, says very

few issues associated with thermal comfort and ventilation have been experienced since.

“Everything associated with this project was completed with an eye to quality, performance and reliability rather than price,” Beattie says. “Consequently, we delivered a product that continues to perform extremely well, exceeded client expectations, never fails and has ultimately been great value.

“As a flagship project for Rudds, we are extremely grateful for the support and opportunity provided by the Capital Airport Group, and proud of the world-leading achievements made by our local Canberra-based consultancy practice.”

Six years on, the airport’s trigeneration system continues to operate for approximately 10 hours a day, every day.

It has been extensively tested – including through a number of mains power interruptions – and remains ready to provide back-up power and an alternative air conditioning energy source when required. It has also contributed to the national electrical grid at peak times.

Such is the available capacity of the installed system that it was able to cater for the addition of an International Terminal in 2016. As well as growing domestic air traffic, the airport now receives two international flights daily.

As one of the most impressive airport terminals in the country, Canberra Airport is well on its way to achieving its ambition of being the Best Little Airport in the World. ❚

F E A T U R E

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PROJECT AT A GLANCE

The personnel

▲ Architect: Guida Moseley BrownArchitects

▲ Builder: Construction Control

▲ Client: Capitol Airport Group

▲ Electrical services engineer: RuddsConsulting Engineers

▲ Mechanical services contractor:Benmax

▲ Mechanical services engineer:Rudds Consulting Engineers

The equipment

▲ AHUs: Colair

▲ BMS: Delta Building Automation

▲ Boilers: Rendamax

▲ Chillers: Carrier

▲ Cooling towers: BAC

▲ CRAC units: Liebert

▲ Dampers: Holyoake

▲ Diffusers: Dadanco

▲ Duct: Benmax

▲ Fans: Fantech

▲ FCUs: Temperzone/Colair

▲ Grilles: Holyoake

▲ Pipework: Benmax

▲ Pumps: Grundfos

▲ Tri-generation: Broad

▲ VAV boxes: Holyoake(Source: Rudds Consulting Engineers)

The installed system had sufficient capacity to supply

the International Terminal when it was built in 2016.