ENGINEERING SERVICES OF NEW SCIENCE SCHOOL

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30275, 30 October 1963, Page 21

ENGINEERING SERVICES OF NEW SCIENCE SCHOOL

A model of the new science school at the Ham campus of the University of Canterbury was exhibited at a recent meeting of the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Institution of Engineers during a synipoeium on the mechanical and electrical engineering services at the new school presented by Messrs K E Mapstone, G. Eccles, and J. O. Renaut of the Mechanical and Electrical Eng neering Division of the Ministry of Works.

Mr Mapstone introduced the subject by means of the model. There are to be six main buildings, the biggest being an eight-storey block to house the chemistry and physics departments. Other departments to be accommodated include those of

mathematics, psychology, botany, geology, zoology, and geography; one block will be devoted to a library and another to lecture-theatres. The school is under construction but is not due to be finished until 1965.

Mr Eccles then dealt with 15 mechanical services to be installed. Among these were the heating and ventilation end the various piped gas supplies, the vacuum and distilled water services laid on to the laboratories. There will be over 2000 outlets for coal gas in the school, and in order to ease toe demand on the local gas mains a high-pressure storage unit will be installed so that gas can be drawn off during toe right and used the tallowing day.*

A special problem was posed by the 186 fume, cupboards in the chemistry department and toe 41 exhaust systems associated with them. Because of the large and variable amount of air that wiM be exhausted from toe building and has to be replaced by eold outside air during the

winter, special fan convector heating units are switched on at toe same time as the associated exhaust system and ensure that toe right amount of replacement air is heated and supplied to the laboratories where toe fume cupboards are working.

The lecture theatre block contains 11 theatres and will seat 1350 students. It is fully

air-conditioned with both the temperature and relative humidity of toe air controlled. Cooling of toe air will be achieved by water from an artesian well specially sunk on toe site, supplemented under extreme conditions by a special refrigeration plant—toe second of its kind m New Zealand. Special acoustic linings have been inducted in toe arr ducts to ensure that no nuisance will be experienced from noise from toe air conditioning machinery by toe use of special acoustic linings in toe air ducts. The system will be automatically controlled by electronic controls.

Mr Renaut explained that the power supply to toe Science School was by means of an 11,000-volt cable which linked toe main substation at the boiler house with toe Engineering School and two 750 k.va. transfonmers in toe Science School in form a ring main.

In toe physics department and plaint of toe chemistry department, radio interference

is required to be reduced to toe lowest economical level. Apart from toe use of special cable and metal-clad equipment, suppressors will be fitted where necessary, and a special screened room is to be provided. For special purposes direct current electrical supplies will be available from portable rectifiers. A standard-frequency supply, giving five different frequencies varying from 1 kilocycle

a second to 10 megacycles, will be available in 50 rooms and laboratories.

To serve the chemistry and physics building there will be four passenger lifts and a goods lift. The passenger lifts will carry 20 persons each at a speed of 500 ft per minute, and will be under toe direction of an automatic traffic analyser which will select one of six programmes to handle toe traffic most, effectively. Passenger and goods lifts will also be installed in some of toe other buildings.

A centrally-located crystal

chronometer will operate toe system of slave clocks throughout the Science School and this system will be capable of being extended to future building on toe site. The chronometer will be accurate to the order of one second per month, using a crystal controlled oscillator to generate toe basic frequency.

The buildings will be protected by five automatic firealarm systems.