The
Heritage Group were pleased and fortunate to have found
and visited a building which still has its original
steam engine in use today providing the motive power to
drive the ventilation equipment. The steam engine has
been in continuous use since 1907 when the building was
first opened. |
Municipal
Technical
Institute College Square East Belfast - Northern Ireland |
The
building of the Technical College in College Square
caused substantial heart-burnings. Its deplorable
siting was the outcome of the financial
embarrassment of the Governors of the Royal Belfast
Institution. They had long been in debt; and in 1899
resolved on the extreme measure of realizing the
site value of the parts of the grounds surrounding
the school. The resulting building masks Sloane’s
façade of the school, overshadows it, and generally
presents an outstanding example of egregious town
planning. (1)
1. “Buildings in Belfast” 1700 – 1914 by C.E.B. Brett “The Edwardian City” Page 71 |
Building
programme 1899 to 1907 - Architect Samuel Stevenson.
The Building
Services Engineering Contractor for the project was
Musgrave & Co.
of Belfast who manufactured and installed the majority of the H&V equipment. Their tender
dated August 1905 was accepted in the sum of £2880
|
The building is heated by a warm air plenum system complete with an air washer which for that time period was unusual as it provided a course amount of air conditioning to the ventilation by cooling and /or humidifying the supply air. |
CUT AWAY VIEW Tower Block Plant Area showing the - Steam engine Supply fans Heater battery Spray air washer Drive Shafts Return / Fresh Air Paths |
The steam engine is a Musgrave & Co. of Belfast 15 hp. (operating at 100 psi ) single cylinder horizontal pedestal mounted machine, which drives the two large centrifugal fan impellers through a single direct drive shaft fitted with a friction clutch. On the drive shaft is a 1.5 metre approx. diameter flywheel with an adjacent 1.5 metre diameter freewheel flywheel also fitted on the drive shaft. The freewheel flywheel was originally belt driven by a DC motor (now removed) which was engaged to the drive shaft through a screw clutch. This motor provided a standby facility to drive the shaft powering the ventilation fans when the steam engine was being repaired or required maintenance. |
FRONT VIEW OF ENGINE |
REAR VIEW SHOWING FRICTION CLUTCH & FLYWHEELS |
VALVE GEAR & CRANKSHAFT |
VIEW SHOWING MANUAL CHANGEOVER OF FLYWHEELS |
The
steam
supply was originally generated from a
Lancashire pattern boiler, which has now been
replaced by a packaged unit. The original boiler
plant was coupled to both a superheater and flue
side economiser. The steam boiler supplies the
engine, air heater battery, heating and domestic
HWS calorifiers. Exhaust steam from the engine is first fed through a feed water pre-heater before being discharged to waste as condensate. The pre-heated feed water is then fed into the boiler hotwell. No waste steam from the engine is recovered as condensate, due to the possibility of oil contamination, which would create problems within the steam boiler plant. |
Sited
in the tower is the return / fresh air is the
mixing chamber at first and second floor levels are
two spinning disk spray humidifiers / washers which
produced a small amount of cooling in the summer and
humidification during the winter. Each unit is about
2.4 metres in diameter. The spinning disks were driven
by belts and pulleys from the main steam engine drive
shaft. The water supply to the two spinning disks was designed to provide for re-circulation. All surplus spray water was collected in a gulley at the bottom of each disk unit which then drained back through a pipe to a basement collecting tank. A steam operated Worthington Pump unit then returned the water back up to re-supply the sprays. This air washing equipment although still in position is no longer in use. |
Front view of spinning Disk Humidifier / Washer |
Original Worthington steam driven Water Pump |
Two 5
metre approx. diameter centrifugal fans connected in
parallel as supplied by Musgrave & Co of Belfast
from their “Ulster” range provide the supply air to
the building. The ventilation plant also
comprises on the fan suction side in the direction of
air flow a ‘V’ pattern filter bank and a steam fed
gilled tube air heater battery, which has 6 separate
sections (3 wide x 2 high). The supply air from these fans is discharged into large walkway sized brickwork ducts which are constructed under the Ground Floor corridors. From these walkway ducts smaller riser ducts are connected to supply air to the individual rooms at all floor levels of the building. Each riser duct is contained within the fabric of the building structure. All branch supply duct take off connections within the basement ducts are fitted with a hot water re-heat booster battery and volume control damper (VCD). Each VCD has a canvas blind shutter which canbe raised or lowered to suit its correct regulating control position. The blind can then be screw locked into that position. Each main classroom and other areas in the building have a supply air register fitted at high level. A similar air register at low level provides the extracted air path into the corridor. A percentage of this extracted air is used for re-circulation and is routed through the main corridors at each floor level which act as the pathway for the air to return to the tower chamber where it mixes with the incoming fresh air in the tower before returning to the air handling plant. The remaining percentage of vitiated air is extracted at fourth floor level through ceiling mounted extract gratings into an above ceiling main duct before exiting to atmosphere through four roof mounted turrets. |
The two Musgrave's of Belfast Centrifugal fans with paddle blade impellors which are shaft driven from the steam engine |
Main direct shaft drive from the steam engine |
View of paddle blade impellors |
|
Views along the plenum walkway ducts |
|
Typical return air path through corridor |
Room Air Transfer Grating |
Booster heater with blind in closed position |
Blind in open position |
Each different size of supply and extract grating manufactured by Musgrave & Co. had the letters MTIB and the year 1906 woven into the design pattern of the wrought iron gratings. |
Roof extract turret |
The
boiler plant supplies two steam/water
vertical pattern calorifiers.
These provide hot water to serve all the
ventilation basement duct re-heater
batteries and remaining heating
equipment.
The original calorifiers were manufactured by Royles,Ltd of Irlam Manchester. The battery of each steam chest had a tube bundle which was of the “pinched tube” pattern. Both these calorifiers have now been replaced and updated. All the flow and return pipework connections to the re-heat booster batteries in the basement walkway ducts are fitted with gate valves for isolation and possible regulation. These batteries are all fed from a single pipe circuit but to maximize water circulation through each battery, tongue tees are fitted to both the flow and return branch pipe connections of each heater. |
Pinched battery tubes from original calorifiers |
|
Gate valve controlling sub-circuit |
Piston pattern expansion joint |