University of Waterloo

Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum Nano Centre

To understand how small a single nanometre is (one billionth of a metre), one hair on your head is approximately 80,000 nanometres in diameter. A strand of your DNA is only 2 nanometres wide.

The Quantum Nano building features state-of the-art laboratories for Nanotechnology research, ion and atom trapping, nuclear magnetic resonance, low temperature superconductivity, quantum optical research and a suite of clean rooms for fabrication and testing of quantum and nanotechnology devices.

The building was not just innovative, it was completely unique in Canada. The type of research, science and learning taking place here is at the leading edge of nanotechnology science.

With rapid advances in science, HH Angus had to be proactive to ensure that the building’s lab infrastructure was flexible enough to serve both today’s researchers and future scientific endeavours.

We continued to collaborate and communicate long after our formal role on the project had ended. There were significant challenges in the operation of such a sensitive and complex building. We extended our involvement to train the Centre's operations staff and teach them how to tune the systems. For well over a year of support, we taught and solved issues that resulted in no changes to the design, simply passing on the knowledge of how to operate the building and how to diagnose clues to optimize performance. HH Angus’ dedicated team of engineers sees each of our building projects as a legacy for our client.

SERVICES
Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Engineering | Security & Communications | Vertical Transportation Design

PROJECT FEATURES
Size: 285,000 ft2 | Status: Completed 2013

LOCATION
Waterloo, Ontario

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Flexible design to serve future lab programs | Precision temperature control | UPS | Filtered electrical power

Ground-breaking facilities

The Quantum Nano Centre and its infrastructure is recognized as a ground-breaking building able to support ground-breaking research, teaching and science.

Design excellence

The highly technical facility required not only high precision temperature, humidity, filtered electrical power, uninterrupted power supplies, but also the mechanical, electrical and communications infrastructure that would meet the architectural and structural requirements.

Stakeholder involvement

This project was executed under the watchful eyes of multiple stakeholders. There was ongoing collaboration between the building department, university user groups and supervisors, international leaders in quantum computing and nanotechnology, as well as donors.

Queen’s University

Reactor Materials Testing Laboratory

“The facility provides a unique capability in Canada to support the development of materials for advanced reactor systems, and to improve our understanding of materials in use in existing reactors.”

– Rick Holt, Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen’s University

HH Angus has a long-standing and highly-valued relationship with Queen’s University, spanning many years and many diverse areas of the campus. For this project, we were engaged to provide mechanical and electrical engineering design services for the University’s new Reactor Materials Testing Laboratory (RTML). The RMTL is an exciting research endeavour for the Queen’s Nuclear Materials Group. It uses a proton accelerator to introduce damage into materials at a microscopic scale.

HH Angus was the M+E engineer for the specialized laboratory building. With TEM* and SEM** rooms requiring critical temperature and humidity control, and HVEE linear accelerator room, this building is a ‘function drives form’ project, with the laboratory equipment dictating all the infrastructure services and spaces. Significant time was spent to ensure appropriate services could be accommodated after the delivery of the equipment and to allow for changes in services that may occur with changing equipment.

The 8000 ft2 facility was custom designed to house electron microscopes and a linear accelerator for a specific research program. A highly specialized building, with toxic gas and radiation protection, the site features an accelerator hall, control room, services rooms, laboratories for specimen preparation and characterization, and working space for researchers.

A significant challenge that our team overcame was the design of mechanical and electrical building services that need to pass through the one-metre thick bunker walls for the linear accelerator room. The walls contain stray electrons, the potential for which also required the use of non-conductive chilled water.

*Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique whereby a beam of electrons is transmitted through an ultra-thin specimen

** A scanning electron microscope (SEM) produces images of a sample by scanning it with a focused beam of electrons

SERVICES
Mechanical Engineering

PROJECT FEATURES
Size: 8,000 ft2 | Status: Completed 2013

LOCATION
Kingston, Ontario

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Specialized laboratory building | Critical temperature and humidity control | Toxic gas and radiation protection | M&E building services had to pass through one-metre thick bunker walls

Oliver & Bonacini Restaurants

Canoe

When the owners of the renowned Canoe restaurant realized they would have to shut down for an entire month to accommodate the landlord’s extensive upgrades to the plumbing system, they seized the opportunity to implement a major refurbishing of their signature venue on the 54th floor of the TD Bank Tower.

Working with HH Angus (as the base building mechanical and electrical engineers), Canoe underwent a complete revamp in interior design and decor. Our initial plumbing upgrade scope expanded to include new designs for Canoe’s lighting, HVAC, kitchen, bar area and more. The project required meeting a tight schedule to ensure minimum impact on the restaurant’s operations, with HH Angus personnel on site most days. The project was delivered on time and on budget.

SERVICES
Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Engineering | Lighting Design

PROJECT FEATURES
Status: Completed 2011

LOCATION
Toronto, Ontario

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Design upgrades to interiors, plumbing, lighting, HVAC and more | Accelerated schedule

MAN Diesel

Bonaire, 14 MWe Power Station

The island of Bonaire (formerly the Netherlands Antilles), has been a special municipality of the Netherlands since 2010. It lies in the Leeward Antilles chain of Caribbean islands, with an area of 288 square kilometers (111 sq.mi.)

With the commissioning of its sophisticated new sustainable wind-diesel hybrid power plant, Bonaire became the first Caribbean island capable of 100% renewable energy. This project’s aim was to transform today’s largely fossil fuel-based energy supply infrastructure in Bonaire into one based on the application of 100% sustainable energy sources within five years (bio diesel extracted from algae).

The Bonaire project featured a 14 MWe turnkey power station with site work, roads and electrical connections. HH Angus was responsible for all mechanical, electrical, civil structural engineering, including various piping systems (heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil, lubricating oil, compressed air, etc), high and low voltage distribution, and PLC control systems. All mechanical detailing was completed with 3D CAD software, with related materials captured in Excel for the bill of material procurement.

Our design scope covered a capacity increase to 20 MW (designed for future use) and was based initially on Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) as the principal fuel, and light fuel oil (LFO) as an alternative. The plant was designed with the capability to be converted to operate on biofuel in future. Also included in the project was an extensive tank farm with storage of HFO, LFO and lubricating oil.

The plant consists of 5 X2.85 MWe MAN Diesel generating sets at 11kV, and was designed as a base load plant with parallel displacement production from a windfarm generating system. Each genset is selectable to dual busbar systems that each step up to 30kV for island distribution.

This is the only power plant on the island. The diesels supply voltage regulation, as well as VARs and power production to supplement the island’s needs when wind production has been harvested to maximum benefit.

Special care had to be taken to integrate the control systems of the wind turbines and the diesel engines, as the grid performance has to be maintained through fluctuations of the wind resource. The diesel engines have to respond to the changes in output from the wind turbines in order to maintain electrical grid balance.

SERVICES
Prime Consultant | Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Engineering

PROJECT FEATURES
Status: Completed 2010

LOCATION
Leeward Antilles, The Caribbean Islands

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
Wind-diesel hybrid power plant | 100% renewable energy | 14 MWe turnkey power station | Piping system, civil structure, high and low voltage distribution and PLC control systems | Capacity increase to 20MW | Heavy fuel oil as principal fuel & light fuel oil as alternative | Extensive tank farm with storage of HFO, LFO and lubricating oil

MAN Diesel

Ariguanabo Cuba, ~23 MWe Power Generation Plant

In 2006, the government of Cuba began an ambitious $2 billion program to modernize its decaying Soviet-era energy infrastructure.

For this ~23 MWe turnkey power station in the town of Ariguanabo, approximately thirty miles from Havana, HH Angus was engaged to provide all mechanical and electrical detailed design, including various piping systems (heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil, lubricating oil, compressed air, steam tracing, etc.), as well as high and low voltage distribution.

The power plant consists of twenty ~1.15 MWe MAN diesel generating sets and was designed as a continuously operating plant.

Generation is at 13.8kV onto a double-ended station (10 generators/bus), stepping up to 34.5kV for distribution across the entire island of Cuba. The plant was designed to operate as a base load plant. The site included extensive tank farm storage of heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil and lubricating oil. Steam tracing was provided on HFO systems. The main fuel is heavy fuel oil, with light oil as the backup.

SERVICES
Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Engineering

PROJECT FEATURES
Status: Completed 2009

LOCATION
Ariguanabo, Cuba

KEY SCOPE ELEMENTS
~23 MW Power Station (20 X 1.15 diesel generating sets) | Continuous operation / functions as a base load plant | High and low voltage distribution