Smoke Ventilation and Natural Ventilation for Salford Royal Hospital

A combined smoke and natural ventilation solution from SE Controls is helping create a comfortable and safe environment for patients, visitors and staff at Salford Royal Hospital’s new £90 million Hope Building.

Designed by architects HKS and constructed by Balfour Beatty, as part of the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust’s £200 million redevelopment programme, the five storey Hope Building houses a new A&E department as well as providing 242 beds, an emergency assessment unit and critical care facilities.

SE Controls developed the fire engineered smoke and natural ventilation solution around the original fire specification and worked closely with the consultants to create an effective and reliable system that maximises comfort, safety and energy efficiency by linking in to both the building management system (BMS) and the separate fire alarm system.

Within the hospital, the smoke and natural ventilation system is split into two zones to allow maximum control over the temperatures and ventilation needs in both the main concourse and the atrium areas of the building, by using a series of louvres, roof vents and atrium vents controlled by the BMS.

In normal operation, localised sensors throughout the building monitor the temperatures and their patterns of change, feeding constant information to the BMS, which manages the proportional opening and closing of the vents and louvres. This not only ensures that temperatures remain within specified limits but also that the building has a constant flow of fresh air.

SE Controls’ solution also takes account of adverse weather conditions, such as excessively high winds or rain, to ensure that vents are automatically closed to stop the ingress of water and limit any possible damage.

In the event of fire, the alarm system over-rides the BMS, which instantly opens the smoke vents and louvres fully to create a smoke free escape route and access for fire services.

The potential for false alarms and accidental triggering is also addressed by the SE Controls system, as any manual activation by a Manual Control Point (MCP) or individual smoke detector requires a secondary confirmation signal from the aspirator monitoring system. However, if the aspiration system detects a fault, then it switches to ‘fault mode’ where no confirmation signal is required to activate the smoke ventilation if triggered manually or by a smoke detector.

Further fail-safe back up is provided by a separate fully monitored battery back up system in compliance with the requirements of EN12101 standard, as well as a further supply taken from the hospital’s own secondary power system, which effectively provides the entire system with two independent back up supplies.

Mark Hargreaves, SE Controls’ Commercial Manager, explained: “Fire safety is a critical aspect of any building design and in hospitals where there are a large number of people with limited mobility, it is vital that escape routes are kept clear for extended periods to enable them to escape. By combining fire engineered smoke ventilation with highly effective natural ventilation as an integrated solution, the system not only provides failsafe protection, but also provides a comfortable environment for the building’s occupants.”

SE Controls specialises in the design, project management and installation of advanced smoke ventilation and natural ventilation solutions to meet the needs of architects, contractors, building services engineers and facilities managers worldwide. Further information on SE Controls’ products, solutions and projects can be obtained by visiting www.secontrols.com or calling +44 (0) 1543 443060.

SE Controls strengthens its team with six new appointments

Continued success and expansion for smoke and natural ventilation solutions specialist SE Controls, has resulted in the company strengthening its nationwide team with six key new appointments within the last few weeks.

At its Staffordshire head office, Helena Preston joins as Marketing Assistant alongside new Credit Control Auditor, Lindsay Danks and Kate Sansom who takes on the role of National Maintenance Co-ordinator.

The company’s project management and installation team also gets a boost with Stephen Van De Gevel joining as Project Leader for the Northern team together with Tom Jaunzems and Rob Tierney who take up new posts as installation engineers covering the North and Midlands respectively.

These new appointments come just a few months after SE Controls recruited three new trainee project leaders together with an electronics design and controls engineer and the company is expecting to take on around 10 further staff in early 2012 as part of a strategic plan to develop the business and reinforce its core competencies.

 SE Controls’ Managing Director, Will Perkins, commented: “We are clearly focused on developing and providing the best possible smoke and ventilation solutions and to achieve that goal, we need to have excellent people within our team at all levels.”

He added: “Our innovative solutions have not only enabled us to win key projects, such as this year’s RIBA Stirling prize winning, the Evelyn Grace Academy, but also a range of other prestigious contracts both in the UK and internationally. However, it is our people that enable us to deliver the technical excellence, project support and customer service, which is why we have taken on these new staff and we’re looking to enhance our team further next year.”

SE Controls specialises in the design, project management and installation of advanced smoke ventilation and natural ventilation solutions to meet the needs of architects, contractors, building services engineers and facilities managers worldwide. Further information on SE Controls’ products, solutions and projects can be obtained by visiting www.secontrols.com or calling +44 (0) 1543 443060.

Triple RIBA Stirling Prize success for SE Controls

The hotly contested 2011 RIBA Stirling Prize has resulted in a triple success for SE Controls as its specialised smoke and natural ventilation solutions are used not only in Zaha Hadid’s stunning award winning design for Brixton’s Evelyn Grace Academy, but also in two of the other five shortlisted finalists.

The Evelyn Grace Academy incorporates four separate schools within a single building and to ensure that high levels of natural light are available throughout the building, the exterior makes full use of glass cladding, which forms part of the natural heating and ventilation incorporated within the design.

Control and management of natural ventilation system’s concealed vents is handled by more than 70 SE Controls OS2 Controllers linked to the building management system (BMS) to provide incremental operation of the vents to ensure ample fresh air is supplied at all times throughout the building.

Natural ventilation also forms part of the SE Controls’ solution installed at another RIBA Stirling Prize finalist, the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford upon Avon. SE Controls provided the smoke and natural ventilation strategy in the rebuilt restaurant area, the colonnade and the link bridge connecting the building to a newly built observation tower.

The multi-zone smoke and natural ventilation solution developed and installed for the RSC theatre by SE Controls utilises a range of EN12101-2 chain actuators connected to dedicated zone control panels as part of the fire alarm system and linked to the building’s BMS. The natural ventilation solution is also linked to the smoke ventilation system to clear smoke and enable visitors to evacuate the building in the event of a fire.

Darren Wainwright, SE Controls’  Project Leader, commented: “These two projects, together with our involvement in the Olympic Velodrome, reinforce the important role that effective smoke and natural ventilation play in modern architecture. While we might not provide the vision for these outstanding pieces of architecture, our role is to ensure that the ventilation and building safety needs meet the demanding specifications and I’m delighted that we have been involved in these three unique buildings.”

SE Controls specialises in the design, project management and installation of advanced smoke ventilation and natural ventilation solutions to meet the needs of architects, contractors, building services engineers and facilities managers.

Advanced smoke ventilation solution from SE Controls protects Nottingham students

A £55 million student accommodation development in Nottingham is using integrated smoke and heat exhaust ventilation systems from SE Controls to provide smoke free escape routes for around 1000 students living in the new purpose designed apartments at Chettles Yard.

To meet the fire safety and smoke ventilation needs in three of the new buildings at the Chettles Yard development, SE Controls developed specific smoke and heat ventilation solutions for each accommodation block based around its versatile SHEVTEC® system.

Dedicated extended travel distance escape solution

As the maximum escape travel distance in two of the apartment buildings was within the 7.5 metre limit covered by Approved Document B of the Building Regulations, the SHEVTEC Natural Corridor Ventilation System was installed. However, the six storey F Building had a travel distance of 12.0 metres so SE Controls created a dedicated fire engineered solution around its LABC approved SHEVTEC Extended Travel Distance System.

In the event of a fire, the main exit route is through a singe protected stairwell, so the SE Controls solution had to provide high integrity smoke and heat ventilation that not only allowed occupants to travel the increased distance to safety, but must also perform at least as well as the code compliant systems installed in the other two accommodation blocks.

Fully compliant smoke ventilation system

The extended travel system used in Building F was originally developed by SE Controls using advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to create an off the shelf, fully compliant and CE marked solution that can not only assist escape but also simplify the building’s design by removing the need for additional escape stairs.

In addition, the size of the smoke shafts used can be reduced to less than half of the 1.5m² required under a typical natural ventilation system. When combined with the requirement for only one escape stair, this allowed the developers to incorporate more apartments within the building’s envelope.

The SHEVTEC system uses a dual smoke shaft and fan ventilated solution linked by smoke sensors through SE Controls’ powerful OSLoop® control system, which when triggered determines which shaft is closest to the fire and automatically opens the smoke shaft doors on each floor to extract smoke away from escape routes, corridors and stairs. Once actuated, OSLoop continues to monitor the entire system throughout the incident to ensure the system maintains its performance in accordance with the imminent EN12101 part 9 standard.

Fully managed turnkey project

SE Controls provided a full turnkey solution to the Chettles Yard development, involving project management, the supply and installation of the SHEVTEC system and liaison with all the appropriated authorities and inspectors, as well as full testing and rigorous commissioning procedures to verify the system’s performance, operation and compliance with the design brief.

Will Perkins, SE Controls’ Managing Director, explained: “This is an ideal example of how we combine our technical expertise, immense experience and innovative products to develop an outstanding solution on a challenging project.”

He added: “Chettles Yard itself is an incredibly innovative development and is providing much needed high quality accommodation for students at Nottingham and Trent Universities and I’m delighted that we have been able to play a key role in maintaining their safety.”

Further information

A fully detailed PDF case study covering the specific fire engineered smoke ventilation solution installed by SE Controls is available for download from the company’s website at www.secontrols.com/library.

SE Controls specialises in the design, project management and installation of advanced smoke ventilation and natural ventilation solutions to meet the needs of architects, contractors, building services engineers and facilities managers worldwide. Further information on SE Controls’ products, solutions and projects can be obtained by visiting www.secontrols.com or calling +44 (0) 1543 443060.