HVAC System

Black Mesa Archive Suggestion Box
#1

I remember walking around my university campus that is quite large and seeing that it had a centralized HVAC system with huge cooling towers that has water running over huge radiators. I imagine that black mesa uses the same kind of huge HVAC system to supply the whole complex and keep it at that pleasant 67 deg :stuck_out_tongue: Maybe if there is room on one of the outside levels a model can be added in the distance or close by to reflect this massive HVAC system.

I always find it fun to muse about the possible inner workings of such an amazing complex. Imagine all the work it takes to upkeep that facility and to keep track of all the ongoings. I imagine it would be fun.

#2

hi and welcome to the forums
ā€œmuse about the possible inner workings of such an amazing complexā€
yes, that made my whoa experience while inbound, when i was younger,
to speculate about locations and mechanical stuff.
now i know that there is nothing behind mystic blast doors and huge machines.
pure facade and the disappointment after my first noclip run back then ā€¦
its still a good ideaā€¦ facade or not, things like your idea that look awesome enhance the game
even though i think that the devs have taken care of the ā€œlooking awesomeā€ very well :smiley:

#3

Iā€™m a civil engineering student, so Iā€™ve been around a plant room for a new building we have on campus.

For one modern building with a high energy efficiency rating and a building management system, the entire top floor, the roof and the basement are taken up with plant equipment. This includes air circulation and cleansing, boilers, electricity input, emergency generators for file servers, boilers, rainwater recycling system, water supply tanks and some other gubbins.

It was very interesting, especially the scale of the stuff needed. For any mappers I have photos of all this gear, most maps tend to just have a few ducts and a big nondescript metal box if they have a plant room. The reality is much more complex

#4

I think thisā€™d be a good idea.

Itā€™d be interesting if it were implied somehow that the seemingly bottomless pits in Inbound and a few other places were actually used to cool and cycle air via convection currents or something.

#5

wouldnt the fact that the majority of BM is underground help with keeping the facility cool/stable? Most underground homes dont require air conditioning for that reason. You would mainly just need it for circulation, cooling experiments, and hiding headcrabs.

#6

There are a lot of hot things in the facility though. Like heated fire.

#7

Your campus is cooled with a chilled-water system. Somewhere inside your building there are chillers running to cool the water that is circulated through the buildings.

Those towers you see are cooling the condenser water. They donā€™t actually contain the chilled water (or glycol solution) that is circulated through the building. Itā€™s the water that carries the heat away from the condenser side of the chiller and out of the building. The water that goes to the buildingā€™s cooling coils is circulated through the evaporator side of the chiller.

And trust me, itā€™s far from ā€˜centralizedā€™. There are lines and coils and airhandlers and dampers and probably VAV boxes or mixers (and ducting) ALL OVER your schoolā€™s buildings. Not to mention the DDC or pneumatic control systems and their related parts.

And yeah, Black Mesaā€™s HVAC system is completely impossible and generally ridiculous. If Gordon really had to depend on traveling through the HVAC system in a place like that, heā€™d have been stuck and dead before ever leaving Anomalous Materials. Itā€™s almost as if the buildingā€™s climate control system was designed specifically for a player-controlled character to pass throughā€¦

#8

Know any buildings with big entrance areas, usually open to a few floors? They use this, itā€™s called atrium cooling. A building management system will monitor temperatures and open high windows to vent heat. Works well and saves a ton of energy

You have to circulate air to keep it fresh. A modern building may use atmospheric sensors, and there will be a clean air and dirty air system kept separate. Dirty air is vented, while clean air is cooled and treated to prevent bacteria build up before being circulated.

#9

All of the computers and other sensitive devices in Black Mesa would require them to make sure things like wet bulb temperatures and humidity levels were kept strictly controlled as well. Not to mention the heat generated by all that equipment. In any facility bigger than a house, more factors than just human comfort are major considerations.

I suspect that Black Mesa would run almost as many air changes as your average hospital, considering what theyā€™re doing in there. Which means theyā€™re sucking in up to 100% outside air and not recirculating a lot of return air. And since this is New Mexico, that air is hot and dry, requiring both humidification and cooling.

The more I think about Black Mesaā€¦the more I think a giant underground bunker in the middle of a desert isnā€™t the best place for them to be locatedā€¦

#10

They wanted to make use of the old missile silos, as well as having a remote location keeps people from asking unwanted questions.

#11

Perhaps some of the air is piped in from offsite at a different location with a lower temperature, and the pipes are insulated?

#12

So, a pipeline coming from the upper artic? I donā€™t think that would work.

#13

What about teleporting cold air from the arctic into the facility? I mean itā€™s Black Mesa. :retard:

#14

But that would imply that Black Mesa had stolen portal technology from Aperture Science andā€¦

Ohhā€¦ No wonder Cave Johnson hates them so muchā€¦

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valveā€™s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.