Ability shows its capabilities at cooling dealer desks
Taking the heat away from all the computers that dealers have beneath their trading desks is one of the more challenging tasks tackled by building-services technology. Peter Lowther describes an integrated solution devised by Ability Projects.
Ability Projects has successfully partnered with trading desk designer and supplier, DAS Business Furniture in the supply of trading desks with integral cooling capability to a number of trading floors around the world. Amongst these projects was one of the largest trading floors to be fitted out in 2010 at One Angel Lane in London for Nomura.
When the Nomura enquiry was first raised, DAS already had a cooling-system supplier but as the enquiries grew larger, DAS realised it needed a partner rather than just a supplier, which is where Ability entered the equation.
Ability’s background is in fan coils, so the solution was going to be a variation on a fan-coil theme. Ability had also been instrumental in the introduction of EC fan technology and variable-speed-fan speed strategies and the integration of BACnet controls into FCUs, so it was obvious that there was tremendous scope to design these elements into the trading-desk cooling solution.
The problem with cooling a trading desk is that there is very little room to fit the cooling unit. The desks themselves are of a fairly standard dimension, but every trader needs up to four computers — or up to eight beneath each pair of opposing desks. Add in wiring for power and communications plus up to eight flat screens per trader and the dilemma comes into extremely sharp focus.
The design concept was passed back and forth with requests for a few millimetres more, but each time the answer came back as an emphatic, ‘No’. The final design incorporated a special EC fan, special coil, new BACnet controller and a new control strategy.
A trading desk with a cooling module needs to be sold on two different levels — its look, its practicality and ergonomics, and, finally, the technical capability of its cooling module.
While Ability refined the fan coil, DAS was heavily involved in selling the features of its desk to the bank. By the time the focus shifted to the cooling module, DAS was on a shortlist of four desk suppliers — reduced to two following a further presentation on site.
The next step was to test the two trading desks with their respective cooling modules for performance and air distribution and see how each design would interact with the chosen environmental air-conditioning system.
A test facility in Germany was selected and a party of some 20 people, including the bank’s representatives, mechanical consultant and manufacturers, departed for two days of intensive evaluation.
The test facility was outstanding, and by the time everybody arrived, the two desk solutions had already been installed side by side in a laboratory with two full-height glass ‘viewing’ walls. By the end of the first day it was apparent that the DAS desk and Ability cooling solution met all the primary requirements of the brief. We were particularly interested that some of the additional performance subtleties we designed for were evident in the noise and air-distribution test data.
These cooling units have variable-speed fans. When computer heat output is low, the fan speed is reduced to save energy and reduce noise. In addition, as the air velocity increases, the cooled air is driven up between the opposing banks of trading screens, inducing air away from the trader’s face to pick up heat as it passes over the screens and deliver it to the ambient space.
Some cooling solutions for dealers’ desks are ‘sealed’. in that they enclose the computer area and deal with the heat from the computers alone. Ability did not adopt this approach for several reasons, which the tests confirmed to be correct.
An ‘open’ cooling solution can work alongside the conventional air conditioning. If a single ‘closed-solution’ trading desk cooling unit should fail, the computer inside the desk would not have no cooling. Conversely, and as proven during testing, if equipment in an ‘open’ solution desk is struggling the fan coils in the adjacent desks plus the normal air conditioning will help out, so that the impact on the affected computers is barely noticeable.
Finally, the DAS/Ability desk and cooling-module combination incorporates a BACnet terminal controller, enabling all the cooling modules on a trading floor to be networked and potentially integrated into the conventional building management system.
It was only as the discussions and meetings progressed that we realised how important the uninterrupted and smooth running of any trading floor is. This is why the capability to remotely monitor and adjust each desk through the BACnet network is so useful. This is also why the ‘open’ design, which avoids downtime during trading hours is key, and this is also why the ability to ‘hot swap’ a cooling module out of a run of desks in minutes is a must.
Hot swapping is achieved by a flexible quick-release hose-connection kit, enabling a cooling module to be quickly removed and replaced. The brief called for this procedure to be carried out in less than 30 minutes during trading hours. However, the built-in margin of safety provided by adjacent modules means servicing or replacement can wait until the trading day is over.
The order for this project was awarded to DAS Business Furniture early in 2010. Some 2000 trading desks and cooling modules were installed throughout the Summer.
In the trading-desk world, water and electrical supplies for the trading desks are made available by the mechanical sub-contractor but the desk supplier is responsible for the correct positioning of the desks, the pipework and powering of the desks, along with commissioning and testing.
Following the success of this project, DAS and Ability are currently supplying and installing numerous cooled trading desk solutions throughout the world.
As a footnote to this case history, several hundred conventional Ability fan coils were supplied to the base-build contract and fit-out to air condition the rest of the extensive building.
