Sydney City South East – Data Centre – BES Upgrade
From Ugly Duckling to Belle of the Ball, Ryan Wilks Does it Again!
Mechanical Services Upgrade for NBN Rollout :
Ryan Wilks recently completed a major air conditioning upgrade and associated building works to provide a new equipment room for the NBN rollout. This site was selected as one of the major NBN hubs for fitout. The works involved the refurbishment of an old disused equipment area on Level 4 into a new dedicated NBN Equipment Room complete with its own dedicated mechanical plant to provide 120kW cooling capacity.
Like most projects associated with the NBN the project had a tight timeline to completion and budget constraints. As part of the design review process Ryan Wilks were able to offer the client significant cost and time savings, as well as a larger usable floor footprint by offering a number of alternate options which were accepted by our client.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
The air conditioning works involved the installation of 2 off Stulz “Cyber Cool” chilled water CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioning Units) units to provide 110 kw N +N cooling capacity which were located within the equipment room, in a bunded area at the southern end of the room. The installed Stulz units are the latest European technology offering innovative leading edge design (such as EC fans with speed control, long term running cost savings, and are a new direction for the client.
The two new units are connected to common supply plenum which in turn provides cold air to the equipment room into dedicated cold aisles by way of droppers and grilles mounted within the superstructure framework. The dropper fit-off was finished off by a Ryan Wilks initiative: a fully welded plastic isolation frame with concealed fixings to provide electrical isolation between the duct and superstructure. Warm air from the dedicated Hot Aisle is then drawn back to the units through an overhead duct and delivered by way of return air fans to the front of the new air handing units.
The day to day operation of the new Air Conditioning Units is all controlled from the Stulz units’ internal controllers. This controller provides units start/stop, weekly changeover, fault logging and auto changeover and unit alarms. Should the lead unit controller fail for any reason the second unit controller will take over. Both units are designed to run at reduced capacity to provide the design airflow and cooling in capacity. In the unlikely the event of a failure of one unit the second unit will ramp up automatically to provide 100% capacity.
Being located in the middle of the CBD, with limited access and the site being located on level 4 presented some unique logistical problems to resolve. I am sure you would agree that from ugly duckling beginning the room has been transformed into belle of the ball, a high end equipment room.
This project was another example of Ryan Wilks’ innovation by offering their clients an alternate option, completing critical cut overs within tight time restraints and completing the works on time, on budget and to the satisfaction of our client.
Value 500k