Schütz: Westerwald Underfloor Heating for European Airports

Fulfils the special requirements of large indoor spaces at airports: Schütz industrial underfloor heating. Photo credit: Schütz Energy Systems

Holiday time, the best time of the year, is just around the corner! And where do holidays begin in nearly every case? At the airport! In Germany last year, 71 million people travelled abroad, more than ever before. In business and in private life, airports have become a focal point for many people, a place where comfort and safety are all-important. The latter applies equally to customers and personnel, which is why all service buildings connected with the terminals must meet the latest standards. Schütz Energy Systems made a valuable contribution to doing so in Barcelona and Düsseldorf, where it installed industrial underfloor heating systems over large areas.

Heating pipes for Spain’s largest hangar

El Prat Airport in Barcelona: The Schütz industrial underfloor heating system provides Spanish airline Iberia’s new hangar with cosy warmth. Photo credit: Asteca Estructras S.A.

Barcelona’s central airport El Prat’s two terminals and three runways cover a total area of 1300 hectares. Some 10,000 employees handle around 55 million passengers a year there – and roughly 90 aircraft take off and land there every hour.
Iberia, Spain’s biggest airline, celebrated the opening of its futuristic-looking engine maintenance hangar in October 2010. Thanks to its colossal dimensions of 13,400 square metres (200 metres long, 40 metres high), it is the only hangar in all of Spain fit to accommodate the Airbus 380. It also created 200 new jobs.

La Gran Sonrisa: A hangar with every reason to smile…

Schütz partner Sol y Clima from Barcelona laid over 26,000 meters of PE-Xa system heating pipes (20 x 2 millimetres) in the gigantic hangar. Photo credit: Asteca Estructras S.A.

The building certainly does justice to its wonderful name “La Gran Sonrisa” (the big smile), resembling, as it does, a mouth smiling broadly. The building company Cobra, Madrid, erected the complex for its clients, Iberia and the Zona Franca de Barcelona consortium, at a total cost of 25 million euros. To ensure that even in the most inclement weather all necessary work can be carried out on the planes quickly and precisely in gentle radiated warmth without any great temperature fluctuations, a Schütz industrial underfloor heating system was installed throughout the building. This involved the Schütz partner Sol y Clima, Barcelona laying more than 26,000 meters of PE-Xa system heating pipes (20 x 2 millimetres), along with stainless steel distributors, clip rails and control technology to meet the special requirements of a large hangar. The PE-Xa pipes were then covered first with special fibre-reinforced concrete and then an extremely robust top layer ideal for the application in hand. Once all was in place, the floor was ready for even the biggest aircraft in the world to roll up and roll in without any problems…

Special fibre-reinforced concrete on top of Schütz industrial underfloor heating even facilitates maintenance of the world’s largest aircraft. Photo credit: Asteca Estructras S.A.

Fire station at Düsseldorf Airport
Mild radiation warmth round the clock
Although not quite as many as in sunny Spain, an impressive 22 million passengers do pass through Düsseldorf Airport every year. In operation since 1927, the airport today occupies an area totalling 613 hectares on which there are three runways, seven hangars and 112 aircraft parking positions. Safety is paramount here – especially in the light of the devastating fire of 1996 many still vividly recall. A key aspect of the concept is to have highly trained rescue workers of various disciplines on call very close to the terminals.

The tenth fire station of North Rhine-Westphalia’s capital is right at Düsseldorf Airport – and here, too, the rooms are heated by the Schütz underfloor system. Photo credit: Schütz Energy Systems

That is why, in autumn 2010, the tenth fire station of the North Rhine-Westphalian capital was opened right at the airport, in the north of the city. The combined fire and rescue station has a total of 12 parking spaces for fire-fighting and rescue vehicles. Düsseldorf has invested 10.9 million euros in the new building at Flughafenstraße 95, which houses a state-of-the-art fire station that complies with the latest building standards and counts among Germany’s most modern, says the city’s Lord Mayor, Dirk Elbers. Achieving energy savings of less than 30 per cent of the legal requirement, the building sets a fine example, he said, adding that the geothermal heating system, decentralized ventilation devices with integrated heat recovery that replace waste air with fresh air, the photovoltaic unit and living facade and green roofs all pointed the way forward. This success is in large part due to the products and know-how of Schütz Energy Systems. The local Schütz partner Bußmann GmbH – Heizung. Lüftung und Sanitär, Emsbüren, installed 985 square metres of industrial underfloor heating (3500 metres of 20 x 2mm PE-Xa system heating pipes) in the vehicle halls, and 1794 square metres of underfloor heating system (13,300 metres of 17 x 2mm PE-Xa system heating pipes) in combination with air conomy in the office and functional spaces. Integration of the heating system with the trendsetting, multifunctional air conomy system ensures optimum distribution of the filtered air, resulting in a pleasant room climate – and one which is also suitable for allergy sufferers. Also possible: on-demand cooling by letting water flow into the pipe system. And water is, after all, something every fire station should have in ample supply…

More information: www.schuetz.net