Summary Paragraph

This final report is the culmination of a year long thesis project. It will take you into great detail about what the project is, the diagnosis of the building, the alternatives looked at, the ones chosen, and the final outcome of the project as a whole. This project would not have been possible without the help of each and every individual that gave their time and knowledge to me along the way.

Executive Summary

277 Woodland Drive is a mixed used facility that was utilized as the main building for this thesis report. Various systems were explored in order to determine ways to save energy consumption, initial and life cycle costs, and building space. The alterations were made the entire facility, mainly comprised of office and hotel type spaces. The building was originally designed to meet the 130% outdoor air to qualify for an additional two LEED Credits. To reduce energy costs, and lower initial costs of systems, the alternatives were designed to achieve 100% outdoor air requirements, which is 30% lower than the original.

Three alternative systems were designed and simulated producing multiple results. The first system, altered the fan coil units in the office to DOAS FPTU’s, and utilized 19,234,643 kBtu/yr.

The second system held large changes within the hotel portion of the building, utilizing a VRF system. The office was served by DOAS FPTUs as well. This system design used 15,545,436 kBtu/yr, resulting in the lowest energy use out of all the alternatives.

The third alternative design placed two additional air handling units on each office floor totaling in 17 air handling units throughout the entire building. This system was the largest energy consumer, totaling at 21,262,780 kBtu/yr.

The structural breadth looked into the floor by floor air handling units and the additional weight to the structure. The beams utilized were W27x94, and after calculations found that the beams were still satisfactory with the sizing that was in place.

An electrical breadth was also provided that looked into the re-sizing of the circuit breakers on the typical office floors. After calculations were made, the boards were able to be re-sized from 225 amps down to 125 amps.