Jan Dirk Koelewijn reveals the latest HVAC fan room solution, designed to minimise deployment time
In the offshore industry time is always of the essence. Vessel owners make it a priority to keep the necessary yard visits as short as possible. All suppliers must ensure their products do not add to the vessel owners’ time constraints.
To contribute to this priority of minimising time spent on tasks, Heinen & Hopman has developed a containerised fan room that can be pre-fabricated and tested before delivery to the vessel. The installation time on-board can therefore be shortened tremendously.
A modified cargo or offshore-certified container is used as the base for this fan room. The container size may vary from 10ft up to 40ft in high cube execution. The choice depends on the space needed to fit all required equipment and is influenced by the available space on-board.
For the engineering and design of the containerised fan room, a specialised team of HVAC engineers is deployed. In close co-operation with the customer a 100% customised design is created.
This design process also includes the possibility for the engineers to visit the vessel for an on-board survey.
The goal is to reach a design that is completely plug & play. After installation on-board the vessel, the fan room only needs to be hooked up to the duct systems and electrical power system.
This new design includes air-handling units with conditioned airflows up to 40000m3/hr. Cooling capacities are up to 800kW and are available in chilled water or direct expansion execution. Heating is usually done via electrical heaters. Energy-saving applications, such as heat pump and heat recovery wheels, can be integrated in the design.
The first pre-fabricated 40ft high cube fan room has been delivered to Paragon Offshore and installed on the B391 jack-up drilling rig. The containerised fan room was placed on top of the accommodation and replaced the old fan rooms inside. It was executed with two air handling units, two air-cooled chiller units and one dual pump skid. Ducting, chilled water piping, cables and control are integrated in the container. Features include: heat recovery wheels; 100% redundant cooling capacity; and dual supply fans. The container was customised to fit onboard restrictions and was executed with a weather-tight door and service access hatch in the side of the container.
For more information at www.engineerlive.com/iog
Jan Dirk Koelewijn is project manager offshore department at Heinen & Hopman.
