The First Facility Management Blog

A new textbook designed to double as a reference manual that allows engineers to build on their knowledge of HVAC design procedures and methods has been published by ASHRAE. Principles of Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning builds on much of the basic information in the 2009 ASHRAE Handbook—Fundamentals and contains the most current ASHRAE procedures and definitive, yet easy to understand, treatment of building HVAC systems, from basic principles through design and operation. Co-authors are Ronald Howell, Ph.D., P.E., William Coad and the late Harry Sauer Jr., Ph.D., P.E.

The book may be used for/by:

• Undergraduate engineering courses in the general field of HVAC;
• Similar courses at technical institutes;
• Continuing education and refresher short courses for engineers; and
• Adult education courses for non-engineers.

There are several significant changes in the new edition, including new values for climatic design information; new values of heating, wind and cooling, and dehumidifying design conditions; improved values of thermal conductivity and resistance for common building and insulating materials; and an extensively revised chapter on residential heating and cooling load calculations.

Additionally, the chapters on system design and equipment have been significantly revised to reflect recent changes and concepts in current heating and air-conditioning system practices.

Also available is Principles of HVAC Solutions Manual, which contains revised solutions to most of the problems in the Principles book.

The cost of Principles of HVAC is $89 ($76, ASHRAE members; $58, ASHRAE student members), while the cost of the solutions manual is $59 ($50, ASHRAE members).

To order, visit the ASHRAE.org Bookstore.

The engineering mind is a fascinating thing. When an engineer comes on the scene, the most common objects—a stack of pennies, for instance—can be transformed into just about any architectural masterpiece.

“Distracted Programmer” Mitch Fincher has published a Web page based on a talk he gave while studying civil engineering at Texas Tech University. He explains the science behind his creations:

“The following is the basic pattern for building cantilevered structures with pennies. Although it looks trivial, we can build amazing structures with these pillars.

“All penny columns are 10 high per stack. Two side-by-side pennies held in place by a penny above them is called a triad. (Pictured at left is a stack with two triads resting on top.)

“All stacks of coins were created without any glue. Only the weight of the coins provides the support.
Fincher’s site has collected numerous examples of amazing coin stacks, which he calls “a fun hobby for kids, college students and adults.”

The video below demonstrates how one “stacker” has designed a three foot bridge with over 2,000 coins:

Kate McAlpine at the LHC. Credit: Telegraph

Back in October 2006, FacilityBlog wrote about the ASHRAE video, “Licensed To Chill“–a hip “rap” tribute to the field of HVAC&R engineering. More recently (August 2008), we covered the first industrial rap song, created by ITT employees to highlight the importance of workplace safety.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that engineers are just natural born rappers, particularly when you consider this next story. It’s even grander (in terms of engineering) and more popular in a kooky way (no offense to the folks at ASHRAE or ITT).

Now hold onto your seats, because I’m not even sure how to explain it. Thanks to Wikipedia, I’ll start with a definition of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC):

The LHC is the world’s largest particle accelerator complex, intended to collide opposing beams of 7 TeV protons. Its main purpose is to explore the validity and limitations of the current theoretical picture for particle physics (aka the “Standard Model”). The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and lies under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.

As the highest energy particle accelerator, the LHC is funded and built in collaboration with over eight thousand physicists from over 85 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. The idea of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), began in the early 1980s. The first approval of the project by the CERN Council occurred in December 1994 and the first civil engineering construction work began in April 1998.

That ends your 60 second physics lesson and provides a bit of background for this Friday Funny—an extremely popular YouTube funky love tribute to particle physics. Yes indeed, there’s a rap dedicated to the Large Hadron Collider! Along with the good beat, the rap explains the theory behind the project much better than my 60 second physics lesson.

From Universe Today:

Puzzled about particle physics? Want to know what the inside of the Large Hadron Collider looks like? Like music, fun and science? Want to know for sure the LHC won’t create a black hole that will swallow the Earth? Find all of the above in a rap Kate McAlpine, 23, who used to work in the press office of CERN, where on September 10, the LHC will be powered up. The song has been a hit on You Tube, and has been downloaded over 400,000 times. Physicists say the science in the song is “spot on” and provides a rhythmic tour of the mysteries of modern physics and the workings of the LHC, while noting that “the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.” Without further ado [but with subtitles, for those of us too old to understand the language of rap], here it is:

This video has more than a million hits on YouTube, and it was first posted just a few months ago (July 28, 2008). Unbelievable!

This collection of engineer oriented jokes comes courtesy of the Funny Junk Site.

Engineer In Hell
An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, “Ah, you’re an engineer — you’re in the wrong place.”

So the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After a while, they’ve got air conditioning, flush toilets, and escalators, which makes the engineer a pretty popular guy.

One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, “So, how’s it going down there in hell?”

Satan replies, “Hey, things are going great. We’ve got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there’s no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next.”

God replies, “What??? You’ve got an engineer? That’s a mistake — he should never have gotten down there; send him up here.”

Satan says, “No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I’m keeping him.”

God says, “Send him back up here or I’ll sue.”

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, “Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?”

(Predictable punch line, but nice setup…)

>>>>>>>>

Engineering Laws
Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable, and three parts which are still under development.

Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.

If you can’t fix it — document it.

The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.

(Very true, but not so funny?)

>>>>>>
Real Engineers

Real Engineers consider themselves well dressed if their socks match.
Real Engineers buy their spouses a set of matched screwdrivers for their birthday.
Real engineers have a non-technical vocabulary of 800 words.
Real Engineers repair their own cameras, telephones, televisions, watches, and automatic transmissions.
Real Engineers say “It’s 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 25 degrees Celsius, and 298 Kelvin” and all you say is “Isn’t it a nice day?”
Real Engineers wear badges so they don’t forget who they are. Sometimes a note is attached saying “Don’t offer me a ride today. I drove my own car”.
Real Engineers’ politics run towards acquiring a parking space with their name on it and an office with a window.
Real Engineers know the “ABC’s of Infrared” from A to B.
Real Engineers know how to take the cover off of their computer, and are not afraid to do it.
Real Engineers’ briefcases contain a Phillips screwdriver, a copy of “Quantum Physics,” and a half of a peanut butter sandwich.
Real Engineers don’t find the above at all funny.

(Wow, this hits very close to home…)

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Top 10 Things Engineering School Didn’t Teach You
1. There are at least 10 types of capacitors.
2. Theory tells you how a circuit works, not why it does not work.
3. Not everything works according to the specs in the databook.
4. Anything practical you learn will be obsolete before you use it, except the complex math, which you will never use.
5. Engineering is like having an 8 a.m. class and a late afternoon lab every day for the rest of your life.
6. Overtime pay? What overtime pay?
7. Managers, not engineers, rule the world.
8. Always try to fix the hardware with software.
9. If you like junk food, caffeine, and all-nighters, go into software.
10. Dilbert is not a comic strip, it’s a documentary.

(Number 10 says it all, particularly for facility managers too!)
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The Engineer and the Red Rubber Ball

A mathmatician, a physicist, and an engineer were all given a red rubber ball and told to find the volume.

The mathmatician carefully measured the diameter and evaluated a triple integral.

The physicist filled a beaker with water, put the ball in the water, and measured the total displacement.

The engineer looked up the model and serial numbers in his red-rubber-ball table.