New technology breathes life into "dying" buildings

A South Australian company has invented revolutionary air conditioning technology that is breathing new life into older buildings around Australia.

Their new technology, which has been granted world-wide patents, will have extensive ramifications for architecture and building construction industries as well for commercial property maintenance businesses.

It has been shown to improve the efficiency of older induction air conditioning systems by up to 77%, to lower air-conditioner background noise by up to 15 dB, reduce maintenance costs, running costs and lower environmental impact through reducing energy usage.

Vladimir Petrovic, DADANCO Managing Director and co-inventor of the new technology, said the heart of their new air conditioning system comprised patented new nozzles and a re-designed internal profile of the mixing chamber.

"The combination of the re-designed mixing chamber and the new nozzles which feed primary air from the air conditioning plant to distribution units around the building, dramatically improves the induction system originally patented by Willis Carrier in 1939 and installed in thousands of buildings during the '50s, '60s and '70s," Mr Petrovic said.

"The development of this new technology was really a matter of being in the right place at the right time," he said.

"A little over three years ago I was working on a PhD project with Professor Sam Luxton at the University of Adelaide when the University management came to us with a problem that needed to be urgently addressed.

"The 13-floor Capita Building - on the corner of North Terrace and Pulteney Street - owned by the University was being vacated by government tenants because of new regulations concerning temperature and noise in the building and, as Sam Luxton was the Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Uni, the job to find a solution came to him," he said.

"We conducted experiments and from these developed a nozzle design that significantly increased airflow through the induction heat exchanger and dramatically lowered noise levels.

"We also re-designed the mixing chamber to reduce pressure in the chamber, further increasing the unit's efficiency. This combination of new technology effectively increased airflow through the local heat exchanger in the room induction units by 30% for the same primary airflow through the nozzles," Mr Petrovic said.

"Armed with 'refurbishment kits' of new nozzles and clip-on devices to alter the chamber shape, we retro-fitted each of the 557 ceiling-mounted units in the thirteen storey Capita building in one weekend.

"The results were very close to what we expected: around 5-10dB reduction in noise and more than 30% increase in efficiency." Mr Petrovic said.

"On the strength of our success, Professor Luxton and I formed DADANCO and instigated a program of research and development to further improve the technology," he said.

"A collateral benefit of altering the nozzle/chamber shape is that it also allows a reduction in primary air pressure from the main plant, which means smaller ducting can be used to achieve the same or, in some cases, even better results with induction systems than other air conditioning systems.

"We used this principle to design our own Starline system which incorporates the new technology," he said.

DADANCO's compact design of the Starline unit means ceiling space in new buildings can be reduced to 350mm, lowering the slab-to-slab height without reducing floor-to-ceiling height, a benefit that was clearly demonstrated with a new building in Sydney.

Building development company Toga Group was faced with a "no-go" prospect when a combination of local building height restrictions, conventional architecture and air conditioning systems limited a proposed 117 York Street building to 12 floors. Thirteen floors were needed to produce a viable rental return.

When Toga Group's services consultants, Adamus Consulting Practice, studied DADANCO's technology it became clear that the Starline system would allow a space gain of 180-250mm per floor, producing an extra floor for every 12 constructed.

Toga produced new plans for the building, incorporating a DADANCO Starline system, and construction is currently under way.

"Not only would our Starline system allow an architect designing an office building or hospital to add an extra floor for every 12 planned, it could dramatically reduce air conditioning maintenance and running costs, and save a floor or two on the air conditioning plant room space.

"And that has significant profitability implications in the property management market, not only in smaller buildings like 117 York Street, but in taller buildings where rent return has to offset enormous construction costs," Mr Petrovic said.

"In the case of a hospital it obviously means you can increase the number of wards and beds as well as lower noise significantly.

"After looking at the artist's impression of the proposed 113-floor Grollo Tower, in Melbourne, I could confidently say that if they used our air conditioning technology they could add three extra floors in the lower office part of the tower without increasing the building height," he said.

"However, if we assumed that the Grollo Tower was to be an office building of 113 floors, we can add around 12 more floors for the same height. Also, we could greatly reduce air conditioning maintenance and running costs, and save a floor or two on the air conditioning plant room space," Mr Petrovic said.

DADANCO has since applied their refurbishing technology to buildings in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, and are currently undertaking further work in those cities.

Using Adelaide as a base for the development of their technology, DADANCO have recently extended their operations to Singapore and are currently looking across the Pacific to wider horizons.