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Modern commercial buildings are becoming more complicated as the number of sensors, actuators and control loops increases. The building management system (BMS) used to control these components will often generate equipment faults and anomalous behaviour, which causes energy waste, thermal discomfort, and drives up maintenance costs. Such system failures may last for a long time before a facility manager or technician notices them. This necessitates the use of automated fault detection and diagnostics (AFDD) tools to detect operational faults and identify their root causes to ensure fault-free operation.

Air cooling has worked well for systems that deploy processors up to 150W, but IT equipment is now being manufactured with processors well above 150W where air cooling is no longer practical. The power for one company’s graphics processor unit (GPU) is currently at 300W. Another company produces a CPU announced at 205W and a many integrated cores (MIC) GPU announced at 320W.

With an ever-growing list of successful projects around the country, Passivhaus has shown to be as effective in Australian climates as has been proven elsewhere around the world.

A centralised dual-stage, low-charge NH3 refrigeration plant with batch blast freezing at a new refrigerated warehouse in Melbourne is believed to represent a world-first. As Sean McGowan reports, the project is a finalist in the Excellence in Refrigeration category at the 2021 AIRAH Awards.

The use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) has been on the rise in Australia for a number of years, with a host of projects taking advantage of its versatility, sustainability and ease of construction. As Sean McGowan reports, the latest example of CLT showcases all that and more.