Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC)
Investigated root causes and corrective actions for poor humidity control and/or condensation issues in a variety of applications including high-rise hotels, low-rise hotels, condominiums, laboratories, nursing homes, hospitals, dormitories, museums, athletic facilities, cold storage facilities, warehouses, natatoriums, and single-family residences. Analyses frequently involve considerations such as contribution of design versus construction for the HVAC systems, controls, operational/performance issues, building pressurization, and/or relative contribution of HVAC systems versus building envelope issues.
Investigated construction defect claims related to alleged HVAC design and construction issues, including HVAC load calculations, equipment selection and improper installation at locations in the US as well as internationally.
Investigated and assessed the impact of HVAC work on construction delays, including the contributions from design changes, owner-directed changes and coordination with other trades at locations in the US as well as internationally.
Investigated temperature control/comfort issues, including those related to building glazing systems, in condominiums, office buildings, schools and a mall.
Investigated HVAC issues at data centers including cooling loads, redundancy, leaking cooling coils and humidity control issues leading to corrosion of electronic components.
Investigated root causes of HVAC coil leaks or ruptures in various applications including office buildings, industrial installations, data centers, and apartment buildings.
Investigated the failures of variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems, including refrigerant leaks from piping assembled using compression fittings.
Investigated root causes of compressor and chiller failures in various applications including nursing homes, schools, cold storage facilities, and hotels.
Performed condition and remaining life assessments of HVAC equipment at hospitals, hotels, office building, and other dwellings.
Performed HVAC equipment assessments after natural disasters (earthquake, hurricane, fire, flood, hail) at office buildings, apartment complexes, hotels and a shopping malls.
Investigated the causes of and repairs to undergrounds air ducts with leaks and groundwater infiltration.
Analyzed the design and performance of HVAC systems in Asia and the Middle East for applications including petrochemical facilities, a shopping mall, a nuclear power plant and an observation wheel.
Performed extensive testing and analysis of performance of large thermal energy storage system that was not meeting the design energy storage capacity. Determined degree of underperformance and source of underperformance via test data.
Performed proactive risk/reliability evaluation of HVAC system designs at 15 large hotel-casinos throughout the country. Made recommendations regarding potential areas to improve reliability and minimize outages due to loss of HVAC systems.
Refrigeration
Investigated leaks and leak rates of ammonia from ammonia based refrigeration systems, including an explosion due to leak of ammonia in mechanical room of a refrigerated food storage facility.
Investigated causes of equipment failures leading to loss of temperature control and product loss at refrigerated and frozen food storage facilities.
Investigated ceiling collapse at a frozen food storage facility due to ice buildup.
Performed risk assessments and failure analyses on compressors for residential and small commercial refrigerators.
Analyzed patents and intellectual property claims related to refrigeration technology.
Plumbing/Piping
Investigated root causes of water leaks/ruptures on water supply/distribution lines, industrial process lines, sewer/waste lines as well as various individual home appliances/fixtures.
Investigated odor issues and/or hydrogen sulfide-related corrosion of drain/waste/vent pipes in various applications such as hotels, condominiums, country clubs, and grocery stores.
Investigated the design and operation of water distribution systems in buildings in which the piping systems have failed, including, for example, copper pipes exhibiting erosion corrosion and polymeric pipes with through-wall cracks. These investigations often include field measurements of the pressure, temperature and flow rates for the water throughout the system.
Investigated alleged plumbing construction defects including improperly sized vents, inadequately sloped or sized drain lines, inappropriate materials, slow hot water delivery times, and leaks,
Investigated the effects of water hammer on various plumbing fixtures with respect to the potential to generate water leaks.
Investigated piping designs at food and cosmetic production facilities. Issues have included process cooling water systems as well as cross-contamination and clean-in-place (CIP) systems for the food products.
Pipelines
Calculated hydrocarbon release rates and total release volumes for numerous large-scale pipeline ruptures based on recorded data, rupture geometry and geography.
Calculated hydrocarbon release rates and total release volumes for numerous smaller (i.e., pinhole) leaks based on hydrostatic test data. Reviewed historical test data to identify line sections where leaks may be occurring.
Risk Assessment
Performed qualitative risk assessments (e.g., PHA, FMEA and HAZOP) on a variety of products/systems including:
- Numerous petrochemical process and storage facilities
- Utility-scale and facility-scale energy storage systems, including those based on batteries and flywheels
- Three different hybrid-electric bus propulsion systems
- Various consumer products (e.g., coffee maker, fitness trackers, consumer electronics)
- Various medical devices (e.g., unique drug delivery devices, surgical devices)
- Novel refrigeration systems and refrigerants
- Automotive fuel pump
- Novel all-in-one computer designs
- Electrical systems for numerous hotel-casinos, two telecommunications centers and a wafer fabrication facility
- Geothermal brine process train
- Anthrax detection device
- Amusement park ride
Performed quantitative risk assessments (e.g., Fault Trees, Event Trees) for a variety of adverse events including:
- Failures of a hybrid-electric propulsion system for passenger cars
- Fires or explosions due to landfill gas under various designs for a proposed landfill site
- Fires or explosions due to unintentional releases of hydrocarbon refrigerants
- Water leaks due to failed plumbing components or fire sprinklers
- Catastrophic failures of a refrigerated cargo container for airliners
- Fires or electrocutions for various consumer electric devices such as plug-in air fresheners and gasoline-powered toys
- Failures of a flywheel-based uninterruptible power supply (UPS) unit
- Production outages at several crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facilities
- Pipeline failures and electrical outages due to derailments of railroad cars
Performed Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) analyses for a variety of products/systems including:
- Numerous telecommunication and networking components
- A wearable computer system for military combat use
- A portable surveillance system for military combat use.
Performed design-stage risk assessments on over a dozen large, international oil and gas storage and refining facilities in the Middle East and Indonesia including:
- Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) studies to determine risk contours due to combined effects of various releases and their consequences (e.g., fire, explosion and toxic gas).
- Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) studies to determine the availability capacity of the facility over a 20 to 30 year lifetime.
- Safety Integrity Level (SIL) studies on required reliability of sensors and other safety devices based on risk level.
