A mechanical engineering firm was contracted to install new cooling equipment in a municipal ice rink’s mechanical room. The challenge was to design the equipment installation without tearing out the old equipment first, and to install some elements and piping that housed the refrigerant around the current equipment configuration to limit downtime of the facility when the cooling unit was actually disconnected.
As an incentive, the municipality offered the engineering firm a bonus for every day they finished ahead of schedule, or a penalty for every day the rink was out of commission past the projected timeline.
To install a new refrigeration unit, a model of the entire mechanical room was needed so that the mechanical engineer would know where all the connecting pipes were and how much space was available for the new unit. He would also be able to determine what could be updated and replaced before the old unit was disconnected, thus getting a head start on installing the new parts in the correct locations. Pipes could be preinstalled and simply hooked up when the new unit was brought in. With the bonus offer, time meant money to the engineering firm, and the quicker and more accurately they could plan the installation, the more they stood to gain.
The company was referred to GKS Global Services through a previous customer. GKS was brought in to perform a scan of the entire mechanical room to create a precise model to facilitate the equipment installation.
The mechanical room to be refitted was approximately 30 ft × 50 ft and full of machines and equipment that ran the ice arena. Everything needed to be modeled to avoid creating interferences between the room’s contents when the new refrigeration unit and the associated piping were installed. The GKS engineer used a FARO Photon 3-D Laser Scanner to perform the scan. Because the room was crowded with equipment, six setups were required to capture all the features with an unobstructed field of view.
The entire scanning process took approximately one hour to complete, collecting more than 250 million data points. The alternate way of acquiring this type of detailed dimensional data would have been to measure everything manually with tape measures and rulers, and to write down each dimension on a 2-D hard copy drawing. This method would have taken at least three weeks to complete, and would have cost at least twice the amount spent on laser scanning. The results would not have been as accurate or thorough. Also, the z-axis (vertical) measurements needed to have been recorded on the 2-D drawing.
Using laser scanning to map the entire room in 3-D saved the engineering firm at least 65 percent in time and outlay, from three weeks down to one week for scanning and modeling, and from $10,000 to $12,000 down to $5,000 in cost, which included wages, overtime, and consulting.
The scan data of the room and the equipment were collected in an hour and provided accuracies of ±0.08 in.; modeling took place in autoCAD in about three days with an accuracy of ±0.5 in. The precise model of the room and its contents allowed the consulting engineers to plan the tear-out in stages, with temporary lines facilitating the switchover. They accomplished all the updates on the plumbing and electric systems before having to go off line while replacing the cooling unit.
Because the model was so accurate, the retrofits went in without a hitch. The engineering firm was able to use the scan data layers to separate their work into phases. This made it easy to see the existing configuration, determine what would remain after the installation, what would be removed, and where the new equipment would fit. The new exchange system was very complicated and high-tech, so having a thorough and accurate map of the space was a tremendous advantage. Downtime at the rink was minimal, just eight hours while the new system was installed and the pipes hooked up. Once again the speed of the refurbishing process made possible with laser scanning by GKS saved the municipality from losing revenues in admission and rental charges, and earned the engineering firm payback from the incentive program by finishing ahead of schedule.
As buildings and their physical plants age, fast, accurate 3-D laser scanning is an excellent method to perform updates with minimal disruption of the structures’ functions. Saving time and money by shortening the renovation process, plus providing more exact results make long-range laser scanning a technique to adopt for many large-scale remodeling, updating, and refurbishing projects.
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GKS Global Services is an in-house service bureau division offering complete 3-D scanning, reverse engineering, and dimensional inspection services. The company’s metrologists and engineers are experienced in the automotive, defense, electronics and many other manufacturing industries. GKS also provides terrestrial scanning services for digitizing large-scale objects, for example, bridges, buildings, power plants, mines, and ships.
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