EAB played an important role in the construction of the 625,000 square foot Zayed building at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The HVAC systems supporting the laboratory areas contain air-to-air heat recovery systems and all systems are designed with N+1 redundancy. A full emergency power system with N+1 capacity supports the research operations, as well.
In 2011, EAB was engaged during the design phase of the project to provide commissioning design review on the MEP and Life Safety Systems. Afterwards, EAB was awarded the HVAC/domestic hot water testing, Testing and Balancing and the Building Commissioning scope.
Testing and Balancing
The Testing and Balancing scope included testing of the built-out areas, capacity testing of all core and shell equipment, domestic hot water loop balancing, and process water loop balancing. The Testing and Balancing scope also included BAS control point and sensor calibration verification with the owner and BAS vendor.
Building Commissioning
The Total Building Commissioning scope included management of the commissioning process, as well as, witnessing of factory equipment testing, creation and review of all system verification checklists, development and facilitation of all Functional Performance Testing and Integrated Systems Testing for the entire facility. Our team reviewed the owner’s training process, as well as, all O&M documentation for compliance with the project requirements.
This project involved a unique air-to-air energy recovery system. It was the largest installation of its type as each unit contained 120 energy cores. The client requested that we test these cores in our laboratory to verify the performance and ensure that contaminated exhaust air would not infiltrate the clean outdoor air sections of the core prior to the technology being utilized on the project.
“The Zayed Building project at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was a success because of our organizational strength managing such a large project and our talented team that cohesively worked together to deliver an optimum operating facility. Our team took ownership in our roles on the project, which enabled us to hit the ground running, troubleshoot, and work together to solve any problems that arose.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with M.D. Anderson on this project as their management team asked critical questions that challenged the contractors to produce a quality project. M.D Anderson is second to none because they listened to our feedback, and became closely involved in the project.
Additionally, this was one of the first major projects to highlight both EAB Test and Balance and Building Commissioning Services. This combination was instrumental in the success of the project proving that EAB’s Commissioning services operates to the same industry leading standards as the Test and Balance side has done for 65 years.” – Jimmy Pelezo