Project Phase: Construction
Delivery Method: EPC (Engineer Procure Construct)
Statement of Problem:
The project has Mott Novaguard fume hoods located throughout the labs. These fume hoods were designed by the lab planning architect, Iron Horse, to have PVC interior liners. During project construction and when the fume hoods were going into production, the fume hood supplier (Detroit Technical Equipment) raised concerns on the selected liner material considering that heat generating equipment would be operating in certain fume hoods and could potentially create a hazard where the PVC material would melt.

While PVC is a liner material that is selected for its chemical resistance to acids, it has a low melting temperature and therefore any hoods which have hot equipment in them should instead opt for an FRP liner which is not as chemical resistant but can tolerate the generated heat loads.

Two additional issues arose when this was discovered:

1) the fume hoods which were designed for acid dilution were not specified properly with the more robust lexan sash and stainless steel airfoil that is typically selected for acid dilution.
2) the fume hoods which contained heat generating equipment required for duct lab control valves rated to higher temps. While most of these were captured by the mech. engineer, there was one which was not captured and had to be changed.