With great anticipation and excitement, The University of Alaska in Fairbanks (UAF) began constructing their new Life Sciences Research & Teaching Facility in 2011. It will provide multiuse teaching and research labs, classrooms, and office space for life science research and academic purposes.
UAF is located in the interior of Alaska and sees extreme variations in outside conditions between the summer and winter. Summer temperatures can reach up to +100F and then fall as low as -50F during the winter. The sun stays above the horizon for over 21 hours on June 21st and will only be above the horizon for 4 hours on December 21st.
Energy efficient and sustainable materials
Life Sciences will be constructed with the most current, energy efficient and sustainable materials available"
UAF Facilities Services, the Project Manager, is constantly working to make sure the buildings are operational at all times of the year, but most importantly when it is -50F outside. One small problem at extreme cold temperatures can result in more problems quickly. The range and variation of building age, construction type, HVAC systems, electrical systems, new and old remodels makes the maintaining of the building a challenge. Any time they have the opportunity to use cost effective technology to reduce the amount of man hours spent maintaining a building is a great long term return on investment.
According to one UAF official “Life Sciences will be constructed with the most current, energy efficient and sustainable materials available to a project in such a northern climate.”
keeping buildings operational
UAF Facilities Services has many challenges keeping buildings operational during their extreme weather conditions. They are finding that maintaining the FSD’s in existing buildings is rather time consuming. Time is spent finding the FSD location(s), getting access and cycle testing. Then if one fails, it is physically noted and then replacement parts are ordered and replaced at a later time.
Inspector gives them time saving management of all their FSD’s in the new Life Science Building. Inspector will also provide them alarm failures, FSD location, FSD tag and actuator information, all in one panel and on their campus wide controls network. JP Sheldon Co. was successful in providing many Ruskin products on the project.
A Great system solution
In addition to the fire/smokes with the Ruskin Inspector, other Ruskin products included:
- FSD60 • FSD36LP • ELF6375DX • CDR92
- FSD36 • FSDR25 • CDTI50BF • CD60
Said Andrew Lee of Sheldon. “We have a long relationship with Paul Bruhn, P.E., Senior Mechanical Facilities Engineer and after returning from Da Best 2012 ASHRAE Expo Chicago armed with Ruskin Inspector brochures, I knew of an opportunity at UAF."
"I mailed Paul a brochure, along with some follow up calls and arranged a site visit in Fairbanks. With the coaching help and confidence of our Regional Manager, Richard Cravy, we were able to provide the Ruskin Inspector as an improvement to the project with the building under construction”
Engineering building specifications
The data network cabling enables substantial reduction in costs when compared with conventional systems
Andrew went on to say, “UAF would like to have Inspector as part of the new Engineering building specifications. We are looking at the feasibility of Inspector in existing buildings as there are more physical barriers than new construction. The facilities engineers are very excited about Inspector and we are ecstatic that a long term relationship with Facilities Services is going to be a win-win for all parties involved.”
Control Panel (FSDPC):
The Ruskin Inspector consists of a Panel PC, UPS and preloaded software. The system communicates with damper interfaces (FSDI) to provide intelligent monitoring of motorized dampers and manual fire dampers. The data network cabling enables substantial reduction in costs when compared with conventional systems. The Panel PC is supplied with Ruskin Inspector software and operates on an extremely user friendly embedded platform.
The server architecture delivers new benefits such as reduced commissioning time, ease of configuration, simplified operation and automatic scheduled damper testing. Ruskin’s FSD36LP is Low Profile and High Performance. Its single blade and unique blade seal design means that the FSD36LP has the Lowest Pressure Drop of any FSD in the industry including typical airfoil blade dampers.
