From landside to airside

HVAC engineer Mette Veith Schroeder has contributed to Artelia projects in all corners of Copenhagen Airport.

One of Mette’s first special tasks at Copenhagen Airport was a garage for the snowploughs, which keep the landing strip free from snow. The machines need to thaw once they have been in use because they get filled with ice and snow.

“There are 6 snow ploughs and they need to be ready within half an hour. The first step was therefore to estimate how much ice had gathered on the vehicles and how much heat was needed to thaw them out. As an engineering student, you are used to having the quantities provided to you but in this case, you had to be creative.”

Mette Veith SchroederDesign Engineer

HVAC

In addition to heating fans, they also needed to install effective ventilation, which reduces the carbon monoxide pollution caused by the machines’ exhaust. The garage has a specially designed system, which automatically opens doors, switches off the heating, runs the ventilation system and vice versa.

Heavyweight ventilation
Aircraft stands are also an area, where ventilation engineers play an integral role. When a plane arrives at a stand, it requires ventilation. All aeroplanes are therefore connected to a ventilation system, which is attached to the undercarriage of the aircraft via ventilation shafts in the ground. Mette contributed to the design of the new aircraft stand for the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus 380, which can be attached to 4 ventilation systems, allowing the airports mightiest heavyweight to ventilate over a short period of time.

Mette was also a professional coordinator for HVAC during the recent expansion of Finger C, making it possible to receive passengers from the Airbus 380, which requires boarding on two levels.

“It was an exciting case in many ways. All installations are visible and placed meticulously above the lighting in the ceiling. This required close cooperation with the architect and a great deal of precision in the design phase. We also had to adhere to very strict safety measures in the construction phase, due to intercontinental flights to and from finger C.”