Enterprise
Electric Supplies
Power and Efficiency to
V. A. Medical Center
|
Enterprise
Electric Supplies Power and Efficiency to V. A. Medical Center
|
|
Article
published in the Quick's Professional Journal,
Electrical
construction for the Veterans Administration Medical Center was one of the
largest projects in the history of Enterprise Electric Company.
With over 16,000 lighting fixtures of 97 different varieties, ranging
from high bay lighting to operating room surgical fixtures, not to mention the
power and emergency power systems, the million square foot structure at the
University of Maryland on Greene Street, had an electrical cost of over $16
million.
"V
A Hospitals are unlike any other hospitals you will ever build," Veterans
Administration Resident Engineer, Mr. Walter Gray told us before construction
started, in an attempt to warn us about the complexities.
The
hospital occupies one full city block. Starting
from the bottom up, there are three stories of underground parking.
Then comes eight levels of hospital with eight levels of interstitial
space, containing all electrical and mechanical systems. The building is then topped off with two levels of penthouse
areas, where the emergency power system is located, and the third level connects
to the University of Maryland over Baltimore Street.
There
may seem to be a great deal of space for the installation of mechanical and
electrical systems with eight levels of interstitial space, but these areas were
completely packed with utility systems when the project was complete.
All of the electrical systems ran horizontally in 4x4 and 6x6 wireway,
nearly 200,000 feet. The wireway,
manufactured by Square D, had to be mounted on welded stantians anchored to the
floor, and the Veterans Administration demanded that personal pathways must be
maintained for walking throughout the space, which required our wireway system
to be offset up and around many of the pathway areas.
Can you imagine 16 wireways going north and south, 16 wireways going east and west, and every single one of them having to be interconnected at the intersection with the same type of material (4x4 and/or 6x6 wireway)? Before construction started, we were asked to visit what was supposed to be a similar V. A. Hospital project in Tampa, Florida and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We thought we would find out how the wireways could be interconnected by viewing these two existing facilities. To our complete surprise, and to the surprise of the V. A. representatives too, the contractors must have found it impossible to interconnect these wireways at an intersection on those two jobs. Therefore, the connected each duct with flexible greenfield conduit.
Here
in Baltimore, we were able to handle the challenge.
In turn, we have the only facility where all of the systems are
completely interconnected with wireway. Thousands
of 45 degree and 90 degree offsets, as well as thousands of cuttings and
fittings were required to form the connections around the personal pathway
areas. It would have been virtually
impossible to pull single conductor cables throughout the vast interstitial
wireway systems, so our field personnel led by Gil Mitchell, developed a system
of quick pulls that enabled us to use multi-conductor cables cut to the proper
lengths so that all circuits would terminate properly from the interstitial
space.
With
respect to our electrical distribution system, BGE brought in three, 13,000 volt
feeders. These feeders terminated
in an indoor 13,000 volt switching station, from which fed 13,000 volt busduct
to three, 13,000 volt distribution switchboards.
These switchboards fed the project's six substations.
From the substations, we fed 277/480 volt busduct out to all secondary
distribution points.
The emergency power system consists of six 600 horsepower diesel driven generators, able to power all life support systems within the hospital.