Scope of Project:
The project, performed for NYS OGS, included the removal and replacement of the roof mounted cooling towers serving the 16 story Ten Eyck Office building located in Albany, NY. The existing cooling towers, which supplied cooling to the main building heat pump loop, were 22 years old and in need of replacement. Moreover, the 1970’s steel dunnage supporting the existing cooling towers was failing to the point of becoming a hazard to the occupants if left untreated.
Summary:
Engineering services included performing an energy load analysis on the entire 16 story building to verify the capacity of the replacement cooling towers. Two new cooling towers, each consisting of 800 tons of cooling capacity, were designed and installed on new galvanized coated steel dunnage. Per the client request, the replacement cooling towers were designed to provide better accessibility for maintenance and service.
Project scheduling and phasing became a critical aspect of the overall project complexity. Since the building utilized the heat pump loop
year-round for heating and cooling, a long term shut down of the heat pump loop was not feasible. To account for this, a weekend shut down was performed to install 18-inch butterfly valves for isolating the existing towers from the main heat pump loop. The removal of the existing towers and installation of the new units was also limited to a two weekend shut-down in the middle of the winter. This required close coordination with the City of Albany to develop a detailed traffic control plan to shut-down Pearl Street during crane operations.
Other key aspects to the design included limiting the transmission of sound and vibration from the towers to the existing building structure. Upon completion of the project, sound and vibration levels were found to be lower than the previous tower installation.