Complete mechanical transfer by H.T. Lyons

Mechanical

Business Case

Complete mechanical transfer by H.T. Lyons

Project story

A full transfer of mechanical infrastructure for Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

Key Facts

Mobilized expertise

- Integrated design, prefabrication, and contracting mechanical capabilities

Project figures

- 30+ year customer relationship
- 24 separate piping systems
- 120k sq. ft. facility
- 2k ft of 15k psi h2 piping installed

Introduction

Since its founding in 1940, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., commonly known as simply “Air Products”, operates in more than 50 countries providing essential industrial gases, related equipment and expertise to numerous industries, including refining, chemical, metals, electronics, manufacturing, and food and beverage. Moreover, Air Products is the world’s leading provider of technology for liquefying natural gas (a.k.a. LNG), coilwound heat exchangers and related equipment. When Air Products decided to undertake a major corporate challenge, H.T Lyons was called upon to collaborate with its cutting-edge design and construction and in-house prefabrication capabilities.

Challenges

As part of a modernization effort, Air Products decided in 2019 to relocate its headquarters of more than 80 years about a mile from its original location. The move required building a new 120,000 sq ft state-of-the-art R&D center. However, for a global leader in chemicals no less than 16 gas and liquid systems for everything from cryogenic liquid argon to 14,750 psi hydrogen in addition to the more mundane water and waste systems. The complexity of physically locating all this different piping with the different runs, storage tanks and other ancillary equipment was not a typical plumbing job. Nor was the design of the HVAC system including exhaust and safety systems for a laboratory using potentially
dangerous materials a typical project.

Solution

H.T. Lyons’ broad range of capabilities provided a significant benefit to the construction Air Product’s new R&D center. Lyon’s provided Design Assist along with full BIM Revit modeling, fabrication and installation of the multitude of different piping, plumbing, HVAC and laboratory exhaust systems as well as all of the structural steel for all mechanical systems which was not included in the architectural design. Following the design, Lyons prefabricated large portions of the mechanical systems in-house in order to accelerate construction schedules, increased build safety and quality and minimize on-site labor and storage requirements. The prefabrication included piping pre-assembled on pipe rack sections, spooling of loose piping with manual and control valves, pre-assembling duct with grills and dampers and the pre-fab of various pipe supports. Ultimately, the project required a host of different materials, pipe joining methods, testing procedures and rigorous quality assurance and control (QA/QC) and non-destructive examination (NDE).

Results

The contribution of H.T. Lyons on the design and build of their new R&D facility was another example of the reason that Air Products has been calling on Lyons for more than 30 years. Lyons has supported Air Products in the design, installation and maintenance of many non-traditional mechanical systems, their former R&D facility and manufacturing facilities.