Ventilation first for Melbourne hospital

The Royal Women’s Hospital (RWH) in Melbourne, Australia is a 160-bed specialist women’s and neonatal paediatric hospital, completed in June 2008. The use of a single-pass, 100 per cent outside air, low-level displacement ventilation system to the ward rooms was recognised as an exciting opportunity to apply a new and innovative technology with positive and tangible benefits to patients and their families, and hospital staff. It was recognised that improved infection control, comfort, and indoor environment quality, would enable the RWH to better fulfil its vital role of providing care to the women and babies of Melbourne and the state of Victoria. In Australian hospital design, an accepted approach for the supply of air conditioning to ward areas has been, traditionally, via overhead air distribution systems, mixing conditioned supply air with warm room air to satisfy comfort requirements. The Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne redevelopment project gave AECOM building engineers the opportunity to explore a displacement ventilation air conditioning and ventilation solution to the ward areas that provided enhanced infection control, and satisfied sustainability objectives through reduced energy consumption and improved indoor environment quality. Rigorous analysis of the displacement ventilation solution, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD) studies, prototype testing, and postcompletion testing and analysis, both ensured that the system designed for the ward rooms at the redeveloped RWH was appropriately robust, and verified performance post-completion.

How displacement ventilation works

Displacement ventilation takes advantage of naturally buoyant warm air. Low velocity tempered outside air (typically 19°C in a Melbourne, Australia summer) is supplied to a room at low level. As it gains heat from people, lighting, and equipment, the air rises to a high level, where it is removed from the space. This ventilation solution is commonly applied to commercial buildings, but until now AECOM says application to hospital and clinical environments has been limited. Significant benefits to a healthcare facility cited by the company from a single-pass, low-level displacement ventilation system include: