2008 Issue

www.utahengineerscouncil.org 30 Innovative Engineering The mechanical designs provided by VBFA for IMC included many innovative and unique engineering solutions to address the diverse needs of a full-service medical campus. One of the needs of a campus like this is the need to remain operational during a major earthquake. The hospital needs to maintain the water service to the building for domestic consumption and fire protec- tion during an event. To help mitigate the problem, VBFA worked closely with, and directed the civil consultant to provide redundant connections to the city water system from two separate locations. The civil consultant then designed a water loop around the campus to provide for fire hydrants. VBFA tapped off this loop at the north and south ends and provided a “backbone” water line from the north to the south. This backbone can serve each building from either connection in case the other is down. The same is true for the fire protection main water line. This line is also connected to the campus water loop at two locations and can serve each building from either end. Both lines are located in a high tunnel that is over 1700’ long. The tunnel provides other essential services to each building, such as chilled water, steam, domestic water, soft water, fire protection, medical gases, various electrical services and also the campus pneumatic tube system. Normal operating room design tem- peratures are around 68°F. The physicians who will be working at IMC requested that the operating rooms be capable of running at 62°F which is beyond the capability of a normal cooling system. To solve this issue VBFA provided an additional cooling coil in each air handler that served the operating rooms. The additional cooling coil is served by its own sub-cooling chiller that produces 38°F glycol-chilled water and rejects its heat to the normal chilled water system. This will provide a life-saving environment for the pa- tients during certain critical procedures and will also provide a comfortable environment for the physicians. Orthopedic Surgeons of- ten perform deep-bone opera- tions where it is extremely im- portant to maintain a sterile field. To help with their con- cerns, two of the 31 operating rooms were designed to have a horizontal-laminar-flow en- vironment. This design pro- vides an entire wall of HEPA filters and a laminar flow of air towards the patient to keep dust and other particulates from entering the sterile field. These unique rooms required extreme coordination with the large amount of air flow and consequently the large amount of ductwork above the ceiling. With the large numbers of equipment to select and size and the short design time that was given, it was a great advantage to VBFA to use HVAC Solution®, an award-winning innovative design software that has been developed by engineers within the firm. HVAC Solution® is aWindows-based software that helps design, select and sched- ule the proper equipment along with providing schematics and details. With four 1250 ton chillers, four 1000 hp boilers, over 36 custom air handlers, 179 fans, 93 pumps, 86 fan coil units, 56 computer room units, 49 heat exchangers, and hundreds of other miscellaneous items, the selection of equipment was a daunting task. The use of HVAC Solution® made it possible to get the design out on time. Future Value to the Engineering Profession Within the walls of IMC there are ex- amples of every conceivable situation that an engineer can encounter in the design of a medical facility. One example of a design that should be used as a model for others to follow is the emergency department decontamination area. Normal hospitals usually have a single shower with a drain to a containment vault. When the shower is used the containment vault needs to be pumped out by a pumper truck and disposed of at a hazardous mate- rial site, which costs a tremendous amount of money. At IMC the decontamination area has several compartments that include showers with full-body head-to-toe coverage and hoses and eyewashes to provide wash- ing of a patient. The waste water from the vault is directed back into the lower level of the hospital. There the waste piping enters a room where a sample can be taken and a determination made as to if the waste can simply go down a drain or if it needs to be hauled away. This system provides a state-of- the-art decontamination area and an innova- tive method to save disposal costs. With each design challenge that was encountered, VBFA chose to be pro-active in providing designs that were high in quality and reliability and were innovative in their DESIGNS FOR INTERMOUNTAIN MEDICAL CENTER — continued