Trox UK has completed a major £450,000 project at London Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 in conjunction with SPIE Matthew Hall’s newly formed Southern Central and Airports Division to supply exposed and recessed multi-service chilled beams (MSCBs) for British Airways luxurious Galleries.
As well as supplying the air and water MSCB systems (which represented around 70% of the product mix), TROX also supplied fan coils and grilles for this prestigious, high profile project.
Trox’s specially designed beams included architectural cladding which integrated into the ceiling structure. The recessed MSCBs incorporated a variety of lighting types and Trox collaborated with the lighting consultant to meet the client’s demanding requirements.
Trox also worked closely with the consultant WSP and architect YRM on a series of iterations before the final design was settled on. The MSCBs were then prefabricated at Trox’s factory in Thetford, Norfolk.
For Trox’s Strategic Account Manager, Graham Burley, the most challenging aspects of this project were the detailed designs required to ensure uniform chilled beam sections, and phasing the designs with manufacture. He explained: “Originally, the client wanted uniform sections of chilled beam so that they could be interchanged. This meant each section would be the same length and should have the same performance characteristics and integrated lighting.
“That became difficult because we were feeding the beams with ductwork and pipework, sometimes in the middle of a beam run. This meant that each section could not be identical. Added to that, the scheduling and design were being completed almost at the point we were manufacturing. We had very short lead times in terms of interpreting the latest design requirements and manufacturing the beams. In some cases this was only two weeks. This was a significant manufacturing challenge, but our factory met all the deadlines.”
