Mission-critical mechanical services | Rochedale, QLD

QPT Mechanical delivered a full design-and-construct chilled water cooling expansion for a live, mission-critical Brisbane data centre – doubling installed cooling capacity from 240 kW to 480 kW without disrupting the IT racks already in service. With a discontinued original equipment line and zero tolerance for downtime, the project demanded careful integration into the facility’s existing chilled-water headers, switchboards and building management system.

At the heart of the upgrade is a new high-efficiency, low-noise Smardt Powerpax chiller (240 kWr) and a KSB chilled-water pump with Danfoss VSD control, tied into the existing plant to deliver a fully redundant N+1 configuration. High-density in-row cooling units feed the new server suites at roughly 42 kW net sensible each, while an upgraded 13,000 L thermal buffer vessel provides over 10 minutes of backup chilled water to ride through any mains failure and generator start-up delay.

QPT also installed two 35 kW duty/standby air-cooled package units rated for 50°C ambient to cool the new UPS room, a new MSSB-5 switchboard with automatic transfer switch (ATS) changeover for resilient dual-source power, BMS-monitored leak detection with drip trays and automatic shut-off valves, and a fire-rated battery-room exhaust system. The result is a resilient, energy-efficient and future-ready cooling environment engineered to keep a mission-critical facility online.

Scope highlights:
• Smardt chiller
• KSB VSD pump
• In-row / CRAC cooling
• 13,000 L buffer
• UPS-room package units
• ATS switchboard
• Leak detection
• BMS integration – TACA Commissioning
• Data centre cooling
• Chilled water
• In-row / CRAC
• N+1 redundancy
• BMS