Kalwall Gives New Meaning to Green – Safely – at Ireland Hydrogenation Plant
The economic marvel that is Ireland is a far banshee cry from the famine-plagued version of over a hundred years ago. From the 1840s until well into the 20th century, desperate, out-of-work Irish were abandoning their country in droves. But as the millennium turned, so did the Emerald Isle's fortunes. Today, many who had left as recently as the 1980s have begun to return, finding work and building lives and families in their ancestral homeland. The roots of this revitalized Ireland reach back, in part, to the 1960s and the brand-new Industrial Development Authority, a government agency that would ultimately help to create, among other opportunities, a series of four organic synthesis plants, or OSPs, in Ringaskiddy, County Cork.
At that time, the authority recognized Ringaskiddy's potential as a center for chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals, already developing a citric acid plant in the area, built OSP1 in the 1970s, followed by OSP2 about ten years later. The next decade brought OSP3, and Pfizer greeted the 21st century with OSP4, designed by the Ireland office of London-based Arup Group Ltd., a global organization of designers.
This most recent plant is made up of several components, including a 10,000-square-meter (107,640-square-foot) production building, a multi-purpose finished goods facility, external open steel structures containing solvent recovery batch stills, and a solvent tank farm. Pfizer kept sustainability in mind throughout, making elements such as contaminated groundwater containment and air emissions cleaning part of the plant's green design. However, at OSP4's final installation – a hydrogenation suite – the key concern was safety.
Due to the explosive nature of hydrogen, Arup designed the 17-meter-high (55-foot-high) suite to enclose two independent cells within 500mm-thick (19-inch-thick) reinforced concrete walls on three sides and an explosion-venting Kalwall system on the fourth and in the roof. In the event of an accident, the concrete can withstand blast loading as well as damage from shrapnel and exploding reactor parts, but the enclosure is also designed to direct blast waves toward the Kalwall side and roof.
Kalwall Explosion Venting Wall Panel Systems can be incorporated into any building. Should an explosion occur, dynamic pressures with the potential to collapse a structure are automatically vented. Designed and manufactured to FM 4440 standards, the panels release from their mounting system following any increase of internal pressure above 2kN/m² (0.29 PSI), yet remain attached to the structure to avoid exterior flying debris. In many cases, the panels can be reinstalled at a later time.
Arup chose Kalwall because its light weight would cause minimal damage within the area surrounding any blast. But with all the concern over safety, Arup was also aware of Kalwall's primary advantage: providing controlled, natural daylight through the faces of its structural composite, translucent sandwich panels. The Kalwall Wall System in OSP4 faces north, bathing the interior in a crisp, natural light that also saves energy costs due to diminished use of artificial lighting, while its superior insulating properties control unnecessary heat gain or loss, thereby lowering HVAC system expenses.
The OSP4 hydrogenation building was not the first one Pfizer had built at Ringaskiddy, but it was constructed to a higher measure of function and aesthetics befitting the raised standards of the entire OSP4 plant. Kalwall's explosion venting capability teamed with its famous controlled daylighting properties to help build a safe and visually pleasing facility for the 21st century.
Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals OSP4 Hydrogenation Building
Designer: Arup Group Ltd.
Kalwall Specifications:
U-Value: 0.23 BTU/(hr/ft²/°F) = 1.25 W/m²K
Light Transmission: 12%
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient: 0.13
For more information, contact:
Bruce Keller
Kalwall Corporation 603-627-3861 (800-258-9777 N. America)
|
