September 03, 2009

Contact: Amy Hewes
Cal Poly Engineering
805-756-6402
ahewes@calpoly.edu

Engineering Team Wins National HVAC Design Competition

Students from Cal Poly's Mechanical Engineering Department took first place in a national collegiate competition involving designing heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) systems.

The Mustang student engineers were competing against teams from 32 colleges across the United States. The Cal Poly team took first place in the HVAC System Design category, besting Kansas State University, among others. Winning team members were Craig Allen, Brian Sybesma, Chan Kim, William Raschefsky and Elyse Widin, advised by Professor Jesse Maddren.

The competition featured a 15,650-square-foot office building with first floor parking, second floor retail and office space and third floor offices. The Cal Poly HVAC team chose a ground-source heat pump with an energy recovery ventilation system for the building, citing the benefits of a GSHP's minimal energy use and long life-span.

"The primary driving factors for the GSHP system were its low life cycle cost and minimal energy consumption," the students wrote. "Combining GSHPs with an energy recovery ventilator reduces the size of the equipment needed, thus lowering the strain on natural resources and keeping energy costs low," they added.

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