2005, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (www.ashrae.org).

Reprinted by permission from ASHRAE Transactions, Volume 111, Part 2. The material may not be copied nor distributed in either paper or digital form without ASHRAEs permission.

DE-05-9-3

Getting the Most Out of a Cleanroom Design

Thomas E. Hansz, AIA

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the design of cleanrooms and describes a five-step process that developes the information needed to identify, clarify, and prioritize cleanroom requirements. INTRODUCTION When building a cleanroom facility, special attention should be given first to the essential tasks for defining cleanroom requirements, specifically determining cleanroom areas, building areas, filtration coverage, airflow quantities, power consumption, and budget items. Think of design activities as problem solving and programming activities as problem seeking. Programming develops the body of information needed to identify, clarify, and prioritize the cleanroom requirements. The key to developing a good programming process is being able to manage tremendous amounts of data. This can be accomplished by creating a matrix of different types of preliminary information. One excellent approach is an organized, methodical, five-step process called, problem seeking. Five quantitative project elements are produced during the programming process. 1. Process Tool List. This initial information platform drives utilities, areas, and cleanliness levels. 2. Space List. An analysis of functional areas. 3. Utility Matrix. An analysis of services to each of the process tools for including process cooling, exhausts, pure water, gases, and bulk chemicals. 4. Project Budget. The description of anticipated projectrelated costs prior to design. 5. Project Schedule. The description of project milestone dates outlining major activities and approval-submittal targets.

Tools, people, activities, equipment, storage, and efficiencies generate the area requirements. The numbers of people that will work in the project require workspace, circulation space, gowning space, offices or desk space, and parking space. Perhaps the forgotten type of space in any building is storage space. Particularly in a cleanroom, clean storage is required for material, chemicals, equipment, WIP storage, and maintenance. Beyond this, the efficient use of space in terms of walls, structure, chases, etc., will greatly affect the total area AND, hence, the total cost, of a cleanroom. Another often overlooked space requirement is additional space for new tools or equipment in the near future, say two to five years. The process of programming is the management of all preliminary project data. To make this as easy and as organized as possible, the five-step process called problem seeking has proven very successful. In each of the following five steps, different types of information are developed and analyzed. The order is a natural progression of developing data without having to retrace your steps. Validation of the data is always an integral part of the process and allows for feedback and evaluation loops. THE FIVE-STEP PROCESS Establish Goals First, establish the objectives for constructing the cleanroom. Clearly delineating the project goals is one of the most often neglected contributions upper management can make to a project. Originating from upper management, 10 to 20 wellstated objectives will have an extremely positive effect on the outcome of your cleanroom project. Goals provide a set of clear expectations for the project team that parallel the company's business plan. The goals should deal with each of the four considerations of cleanroom design:

Thomas E. Hansz is president of Facility Planning and Resources, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pa.

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2005 ASHRAE.

FunctionAspects of activities, relationships, people, and operations. FormPhysical considerations of form, space, and systems. EconomyAspects of construction costs, life-cycle costs, and energy. TimeConcerns the project schedule, expansion, and change.

Table 1.
Process Equipment Work flow Material flow Automation Technology

Potential Cleanroom Issues

Facility Organization Flexibility Site services Functional relations Contamination control Aseptic conditions Reliability Redundancy Vibration Waste treatment Storage Gowning Aesthetics Work socialization Productivity Communications Interaction Home base Orientation Facility image Security People Safety

Analyze Facts The second step in the programming process requires establishing a database of cleanroom information. Accurate staffing projections for cleanroom personnel should be developed. Information regarding all manufacturing equipment should be assembled. Utility bills for the preceding 12 months will be very useful and should be assembled. In short, all the information that will give the architects and engineers a thorough knowledge of existing conditions should be assembled now. At the end of this paper is a suggested list of typical information that should be given to the programming consultants to initiate gathering of facts. For processes using hazardous production materials, an accurate inventory of chemicals will be required to satisfy the fire code and building code regulations. Another critical area of analysis, which should be done during the fact-gathering step, is the building code analysis. Whatever building code is in force, your cleanroom will be regulated as to how large an area it can be, how high the roof can be above it, how many exit doors will be required, and to some extent what the layout will be to ensure occupant safety in case an emergency should arise. Cleanrooms using hazardous production materials (HPMs) will be required to have separate routes for people circulation and for the movement of HPMs. Exit distances from any point within the cleanroom may be as short as 75 ft. Walls surrounding the cleanroom will be required to meet specified fire resistance. Cleanroom Concepts Before the start of design, the project team should examine concepts applicable to work flow, flexibility, utility distribution, and other such issues. The team should address what types of changes can be anticipated. Will additional equipment or improving the classification of contamination control be a real possibility in the future? The predictability of the clean environment should be examined as well. All this should be at least addressed if not resolved before the design effort gets underway. Production or research engineers should determine product contamination sensitivity by this time. If not, it needs to be a first priority, along with establishing a flow chart identifying cleanroom functions and their required level of control. Beyond controlling the particulate counts, the production process may also require specific temperature, humidity, and pressure levels with fixed limits of variance. How to provide
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Process utilities ESD EFI/RFI JIT inventories Energy Tool installation

Figure 1 The five-step process.

the level of control is answered during the design phase. Now is the time to establish the control criteria. DETERMINE PROCESS REQUIREMENTS The Relation of Process to Facility Cleanrooms in themselves are not aesthetic features but are adjuncts to specialized activities that must be conducted in clean environments. Cleanroom concepts are therefore dependent upon the level of cleanliness required and upon the type and scale of the activity. Each successively cleaner environment requires stricter operating procedures, or protocols, to maintain that cleanliness level. The strictest protocols may require clean buffer zones to isolate the cleanest areas from less clean environments or from office environments. These
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protocols and the nested space configurations have defining effects on personnel circulation, process flows, material movement, maintenance activities, new equipment installation, and old equipment decommissioning. Materials and equipment must be meticulously wiped down during their staged entry. Other supplies, which were produced and packaged in a cleanroom, will be delivered in double-sealed bag enclosures for protection from the outside world during shipment and handling. These double-bag enclosures must be wiped and sequentially be removed as they progress through the staged entry. Avoiding unnecessary cleanroom traffic, greater quality control, safety, and lower unit costs for bulk raw materials are factors that compel facilities to pipe or convey materials to their cleanroom processes. As usage quantities increase, frequent handling of chemicals, gases, and process wastes increase exposure hazards for the workers and contamination hazards for the cleanroom. The risks imposed by chemicals and gases vary with material properties and concentration. The most universally accepted procedure for assessing and identifying relative chemical hazards was developed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) for safeguarding emergency response personnel. Published as NFPA Standard 704, this system of identifying hazards rates each chemical on a scale of 0 to 4 in three hazard categorieshealth, flammability, and instability. Nearly all chemical containers and tanks are required to display the NFPA 704 diamond, which identifies the hazard ratings. Process Equipment and Process Support Services A key to developing a meaningful and useful program is to gather as many facts as possible, especially about the activities and processes. For example: What are the processing goals? What are the hours of operation? What are the process steps and how does the work flow? How should work-in-progress be managed? What are the most critical steps in the process? What is the philosophy for maintenance and outages? How should expansion and future changes be accommodated?

equipment. In the concept development phase, optional equipment configurations must be explored for fit, operational functions, and accessibility. Cleanroom facilities are typically intensive users of equipment and therefore are large consumers of utilities and raw materials. Frequently auxiliary or support equipment has separate utility services. The equipment database should be structured in a manner that allows utility and raw material consumption data to be associated with each process tool and each piece of auxiliary equipment. This technique has several advantages: Data may be sorted by equipment to show or to change basis. A sort by utility or raw material will give demand at 100% utilization. As equipment is grouped into areas, a utility sort on the equipment groupings will indicate use patterns that may aid distribution decisions. If process equipment is to be added in phases, the database will allow the engineers to study expansion options for central utility systems. During the course of the project, as equipment lists are refined, having a database will allow project managers to identify scope changes.

Depending on the projects size assembling, these data can be a huge effort. So, can a project be programmed and designed without a utility matrix? Perhaps one can, but these facilities are both complex and expensive. Without sufficient data, even experienced professionals will have difficulty guessing and will have no way of knowing whether the estimates are high or low. Too low an estimate will lead to insufficient capacities, and too high an estimate will result in expensive overbuilding. There may be as many individual ways to organize the data as there are people collecting it. Some of the most successful techniques are: Supplying special data collection forms for each piece of equipment to the owners process engineers or equipment users for recording equipment data. Using the owners anticipated equipment list and existing engineering database. Using the owners equipment list and consultants database. Assembling a notebook of data sheets from the owners equipment operations and maintenance manuals. Assembling a notebook of vendor-supplied data.

THE UTILITY MATRIX For market-driven products, such as pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, the clients process assumptions are typically being refined concurrently with the programming and early design stages. Frequently complete equipment lists are not available. In the interim period, data for similar equipment may be used or assumptions may be made. The important issue is to develop a comprehensive database to record information and assumptions and to track the changes as design and construction proceed. To compound the complexity, major pieces of equipment frequently have auxiliary or support
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Hard copies are good for record keeping, but when it comes to sorting, summing, editing, and transferring all or part of the data, electronic copies have an overwhelming advantage. Some of the methods in the preceding list may involve handling the data twice, i.e., recording on forms, then entering into electronic files.
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When collecting data, particularly from vendor sources, make sure that the data represent actual consumption data and not the nominal service capacity, which does not represent utility usage. For example, many vendor data sheets list for the electrical utility requirements the electrical service, 20 amps at 120 volts, rather than the connected load, which may be only 300 watts or 2.5 amps at 120 volts. Accumulated data errors such as this could dramatically distort demand requirements to the entire facility. Once the utility and raw material data have been collected, one critical task remains. If one were to sum the flows or consumption of each utility or raw material, the total demands would be far greater than those actually experienced. What is missing is an accounting of down time for scheduled maintenance and cleaning, idle time for lags in work-in-progress flow, wait time for process step sequencing, and unexpected outages or breakdowns.

through the construction process and even after turnover of the project as a host of good ideas emerge. These are called change orders. The information accumulated during the programming process will be the foundation upon which the development of construction documents rests. It is the function of the design team to sort out and interpret the data as it addresses architectural, structural, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical issues. Architectural Issues The clean facility is intended to house a process. The layout of the facility is based on personnel interaction with material flow and includes raw materials entering the cleanroom, work in progress, and finished products leaving the cleanroom. Depending on the scope of the project, the design team may examine raw material receiving, storage, and transport to the clean facility, as well as finished product transport, storage, and shipping. Walls/Floor/Ceiling

This accounting is usually incorporated as an efficiency factor. Since most manufacturing facilities operate around the clock, the most common basis for evaluation is 24 hours. If the mean time between failure (MTBF) is over 1000 hours for minor incidences, nonproductive time due to breakdowns would be less than one percent, which is negligible. However, a piece of equipment may need to be shut down once a shift, or once a day, for shift change, cleaning, or preventive maintenance. If such downtime lasted two hours, available uptime would be 92%. Equipment waiting cumulatively eight minutes every hour for lags in work flow would be working 87% of the available time. If the equipment sequentially processes the work in four steps and the utility of interest is used in only three of the four steps, the utility would be consumed only 75% of the equipments operating time. As a result the total utility consumption by this single tool would be 60% (0.92 * 0.87 * 0.75) of the tabulated peak demand. Considering group equipment operations, if one of six tools is not operating in sequence with the others, then the average utility consumption would be 83% of the single tool usage. Applying this operational diversity factor to the single tool consumption as illustrated above, the average utility consumption would be 50% (0.83 * 0.60) of the published utility consumption data. Working Through Critical Design Issues The programming process driven by the cleanroom consultant has the potential to fully describe the project that will be built. The readiness of the client to participate in the process, the depth of preparation of participating client team members, their willingness or ability to answer the hard questions, as well as their enthusiasm and time commitment to the processall will affect the result of the programming phase. This phase is the first iteration, of several, that will take place as the project unfolds. Most likely changes will be occurring
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After the facility layout has been determined, the materials of construction must be specified. Wall options include stick built using a drywall system on steel studs. This has been around for years and continues to be quite popular due to its relatively low cost. A variety of coatings and cladding is available for the gypsum panels to make them suitable for even the more stringent cleanrooms. Modular systems permit quick installation and have a full array of cleanroom-compatible materials for the most stringent applications. Windows are generally incorporated into the wall system to permit supervision from the outside, as a safety feature, and to support marketing during the plant tour, which invariably includes a peek into the cleanroom. Windows should be flush to the wall on the clean side to prevent accumulation of particles. Designs are available for flush windows on both sides of the wall, a particularly useful feature for windows between adjacent clean spaces. Floors on grade are frequently covered with a high solids epoxy finish applied to an appropriately prepared concrete surface. Vinyl tiles and vinyl sheeting, with standard, static dissipative or conductive characteristics are also used, depending on the application. Generally in Class 100 and more stringent cleanrooms, a raised floor is considered. A raised floor system should be a forged aluminum construction perforated to permit airflow from the cleanroom to the return plenum space below the floor. A grating type panel may be used in which case the finish may be anodized or powder coated. A perforated panel will usually have a standard, static dissipative or conductive high-pressure laminate applied to it as a wearing surface. The most common cleanroom ceilings use an inverted T support grid made of extruded aluminum. The nominal 2 ft 4 ft system supports filters, blank panels, and lights. In health science-related facilities, the ceiling may be of monolithic design, employing a water-resistant drywall construc655

tion and epoxy paint to eliminate as many contamination collecting seams as possible. Lights are typically fluorescent fixtures specifically designed for cleanroom application. In more stringent cleanrooms, the lighting may be integrated into the grid system to minimize air turbulence within the cleanroom. The blank panels are frequently made of the same material as the walls or may be specifically designed with low shedding characteristics for use in the cleanroom. Entry/Exit Getting people and material into and out of the cleanroom is an important aspect of the facility design. Doors are of a nonshedding solid, half-glass or full-glass construction. They typically have sealing on all four edges to minimize loss of clean air from the facility. Personnel generally enter through a gowning room, which acts as an airlock. Airlocks are used between clean and unrated areas as well as between higher- and lower-rated areas to maintain pressure differentials of the clean spaces. The gowning room will be large enough to accommodate all or most of the workforce using the cleanroom, while airlocks are commonly only large enough for one or two people to pass through at a time. Material may need to be removed from its packaging and otherwise prepared before entering the cleanroom. A material airlock will facilitate such handling. Non-clean materialhandling equipment would move the material into the airlock. Cleanroom personnel would remove the packaging and prepare the material for entry into the cleanroom. For material leaving the cleanroom, a similar material airlock can be used. Depending on the layout of the facility, one material airlock might serve for entering and leaving material. The use of a material airlock and following the protocol associated with its use can result in a major source of outside contamination being kept out of the cleanroom. Structural Issues There may be significant structural challenges when the decision is made to retrofit an existing building to house a cleanroom facility. It is common that the space required for all the ancillary equipment described above is lacking. It becomes necessary to think in terms of equipment mezzanines or roofmounted equipment. This requires an analysis of the building to ensure that the structure can be modified to accommodate such loads. It is not uncommon to install equipment, suspended from the roof structure, above the cleanroom. While some buildings have a robust overdesign associated with them and can support additional weight, others are designed to the basic building code for a specific occupancy and cannot support additional weight. In such cases, a ground-supported structure must be imposed on the cleanroom design. In some cases, the walls then become load bearing. In other designs, support columns are integrated into the wall system to support the ceiling. In
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either case, footings may have to be cut into the existing concrete floor, adding to schedule and cost impact. Mechanical Issues Cleanrooms are a special case of general air-conditioning design and require that certain practices be followed to ensure that the operating facility is cleaner and under more stringent control than the typical human comfort conditioned space. Cleanliness Selection of cleanliness classification is the domain of the client and/or process consultant. The cleanliness level should not be greater than required to meet the objectives of the project. The concept that if class 10,000 is good, then class 1,000 is better will be very costly in terms of airflow, filtration, and air-conditioning first cost as well as ongoing operating cost. Facilities with small specific-class rooms can be less costly than a large single-class space rated at the most stringent level. Airflow Air change rates into the hundreds of changes per hour dictate that air-moving equipment, and therefore energy to move the air, be much higher than the standard air-conditioning application. The final selection of air change rate is based on the best guess by designer and client as to the need for high or lower airflow. An evaluation of the process and the potential of the process to generate contaminants within the cleanroom typically determine this. A contaminating process will require higher airflow than a more benign process. The mechanical system designer is challenged to find a place for numerous large air handlers or fans and devise the routing of an extensive duct system. Filtration Air entering a cleanroom is usually filtered by HEPA (high-efficiency particulate, air) filters or ULPA (ultra-low penetration, air) filters. The most widely used HEPA filter has an efficiency of 99.97% on 0.3-micron particles and is specified for the pharmaceutical and health-related industries as well as some mid-class cleanrooms in other industries. The most common ULPA filter has an efficiency of 99.9995% on 0.12-micron particles and finds wide use in sophisticated microelectronics facilities of class 10 and class 1. While some less stringent applications allow filters to be installed in air handlers or ductwork remote from the cleanroom, the most common site for the filters is in the ceiling of the cleanroom housed in a framework compatible with the ceiling system. Air Pattern It is not enough to introduce clean air into the cleanroom. The air should be introduced in a manner that captures and removes from the cleanroom particles that are considered
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contaminants to the process. The most efficient scheme has 100% of the ceiling covered with filters. Note that even when an inverted T grid ceiling has all 100% filter coverage, only about 85% of the ceiling has air flowing through filter media due to the width of the grid and filter frames. The air moves straight down through a perforated raised floor. This is called unidirectional airflow and permits particles generated within the cleanroom to be captured by the airflow streamlines and removed from the room without impinging on a critical surface within the room. Many class 100 and most, if not all, class 10 and class 1 cleanrooms are designed in this way. Temperature The temperature to be maintained in the cleanroom is driven by either comfort or process need. Comfort can generally be met by maintaining a temperature of 722F in cleanrooms where lab coats or smocks are worn. In the more stringent cleanrooms, where full bunny suits are worn, a temperature specification as low as 662F would be appropriate. Care should be taken when specifying temperature values and tolerances as a result of a perceived need by the process. High or low temperature values can be costly to maintain. Even more costly can be the need to hold a tight tolerance when not really needed. A 1F tolerance is more costly than a 2F tolerance. A F tolerance is more costly yet. This becomes even more evident if the need is to maintain a tight tolerance throughout the entire cleanroom, 24 hours per day, year-round, with widely fluctuating outside air conditions and process equipment heat generation. High first cost, high operating cost, and many out of spec periods can result. Probably the most common approach to maintaining temperature in larger cleanroom installations is by using chilled water for cooling and hot water for heating. In smaller cleanrooms direct expansion cooling and electric heat are used. A characteristic of cleanroom design that separates it from standard construction is the fact that practically all cleanrooms require cooling year-round. This is due to the high internal heat gain created by moving large amounts of air coupled with the heat generated by process equipment in operation. An additional factor is the generally high rate of exhausts, and, therefore, need for conditioned makeup air, present in many cleanroom facilities. The cooling system should be designed to operate round the clock 365 days a year. Humidity Many of the remarks relative to temperature control apply to humidity control as well. The selected value and tolerance should be realistic to the application. Comfort can be realized over a range of 30% to 65% RH if the temperature is held at a comfortable level. The only reason for a tighter tolerance is if the process requires it. Humidity control is costly. In dry areas, humidification drives the cost. In wet areas, dehumidification is the driver. In most areas both humidification and dehumidification equipment must be incorporated into the
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mechanical system if a tolerance such as 5%RH is required. If a tolerance of 2%RH is required, particular care must be taken with the controls as well as the means of adding and removing moisture from the air. Pressurization Controlling pressure differential between clean and unrated spaces is one of the characteristics of cleanrooms. Typically, the pressure of the most stringent space is the highest. It is maintained at a pressure of .02 inches of water column (in.w.c.) above an adjacent less stringent clean space or .05 in.w.c. above an adjacent unrated space. Higher differentials will work as well; however, if it gets too high, noise problems develop and there can be difficulty in opening doors or keeping doors closed. It also contributes to higher operating cost. Where containment is required, and the pressure in a cleanroom must be lower than an adjacent space, care must be taken to ensure the space is tight and contaminants do not enter the space. A room within a room approach may be appropriate. A single pass configuration may also be used. Such rooms should be as small as possible and still support the process. Exhaust and Makeup Air In order to maintain positive pressurization, the amount of air introduced into the cleanroom must exceed the amount leaving. The amount leaving is typically equal to exfiltration, that is, leakage through doors, and other cracks due to the positive pressure plus the amount leaving by design through various process exhaust systems. It is important, therefore, to identify all process equipment along with exhaust values associated with it before designing the cleanroom mechanical system. Generally, a value of 2 air changes per hour for exfiltration when added to the total exhaust will allow the designer to proceed with the design of the makeup air system. Acoustics and Cleanroom Sound This is a topic that tends to generate excitement during the design phase but that disappears as a significant concern once the cleanroom is in operation. The high volume of air movement, coupled with the hard reflective nonshedding surfaces that are characteristic of cleanrooms, brings with it sound levels that are typically unacceptable in commercial work. Designers unfamiliar with cleanrooms tend to specify sound levels on the order of NC50 to NC55. These are very difficult, and costly to achieve, if they are in fact achievable. A more realistic specification of NC60 to NC 65 can be achieved by mechanical designers familiar with cleanroom applications at a reasonable cost and is well within the OSHA-specified levels for comfort in the workplace. Plumbing Issues In this tutorial, plumbing is the heading under which all piping activity is gathered. Actual installation in the field may be accomplished by a variety of subcontractors depending on
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their skills and practice common in the project locale. A single designer or a number of specialty designers, depending on how the engineering office is organized and the complexity of the project, may address design issues. HVAC Piping HVAC-related piping for chilled water, hot water, steam, or potable (city) water has to be installed between the source and air handlers, makeup air units, and humidifiers. Drain lines for the equipment must also be installed. Generally, this piping work is done early in the cleanroom construction process before a cleanroom protocol has been put into effect. Frequently there is a requirement for the lines to be oversized to accommodate future expansion of the facility. Additional shutoff valves may be installed to facilitate installation of additional equipment at a future date. Where possible it is advisable to avoid running water or other liquid lines over the cleanroom to prevent damage to process equipment in the event of a leak. Process Piping Process piping is designed to carry process-cooling water, deionized water, hazardous gases, bulk gases, and specialty chemicals as well as specialty drain systems. Materials of construction include PVC, PVDF stainless steel, and copper, typically provided highly cleaned and protected from contamination and installed in accordance with strict guidelines. The issues surrounding process piping is that the piping preserves the high degree of cleanliness and delivers the fluids to the point of use in a safe manner. Bulk gas facilities are laid out to minimize piping runs and to facilitate bulk delivery by suppliers on a regular basis. DI water systems must be designed with sufficient water velocity to prevent buildup of organic contaminants and be smooth with no interior edges for contaminants to accumulate. Piping conveying hazardous chemicals is commonly double contained and provided with extensive leak detection systems. The process piping requirements are sufficiently complex as to require firms specializing in the design and installation of such systems to be employed. Fire Protection Sprinkler systems and fire protection are also a specialty unto themselves. The cleanroom sprinkler system may be as simple as extending drops down from an existing piping system to the cleanroom ceiling. It may be significantly more complex depending on the flammable agents being used within the facility. The presence of expensive process equipment in the clean space usually suggests that sprinkler systems above the ceiling be dry until needed. The airflow patterns within the cleanroom makes standard means of sensing a fire less effective. Careful development of the system, in conjunction with the fire marshal and insurance company representatives, is recommended. Electrical and Energy Issues The electrical designer is responsible for meeting the high-energy needs of the clean facility. In addition to standard
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lighting and convenience outlets, the electrical design must include power for the extensive air-handling and cooling/heating equipment as well as process equipment. There is a requirement for specific UV light filtration in certain microelectronic processes. Outlets for process equipment must be selected based on the specific power needs of the equipment. Where hard wiring is required, termination means must be identified. In most cases, process equipment will be installed over a period of time so provision for future connections should be addressed. In most cases, the cleanroom is the critical part of a manufacturing operation. Downtime is measured in hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars per hour. One challenge to be faced by the electrical designer is to minimize the likelihood of such downtime. This can be done by providing redundant power circuitry to the facility from the power company. As a standby, an emergency generator with quick-acting changeover control mechanism is part of the electrical design scheme. Since it is not practical to provide emergency power to the entire facility, the electrical designer must identify those loads that are safety-related and are key to safe shutdown of key process equipment. The emergency circuitry can then be designed to overlay the standard circuits within the facility. Redundancy can also extend to specific process and process support equipment. Here again the electrical designer must identify equipment that will be provided with a backup. Dual chilled water pumps, dual exhaust fan motors, backup DI water system pumps, and hazardous waste lift station pumps are examples of a requirement for a rapid changeover control scheme in the event of primary motor failure. Lighting Much fine work is done in cleanrooms and there is a tendency to specify high lighting levels, i.e., 100 ft-candles (1000 lux) with resulting high-energy input and high contribution to cooling load as result. Use of task lighting for fine work and a general specification of 70-80 ft-candles lowers the cooling load and reduces cost by reducing the number of lighting fixtures. An added benefit for more stringent cleanrooms is that the systems employing integral lighting into the ceiling grid can be used as they can more easily provide this lower level of light. RENOVATION CONSTRAINTS Retrofitting an existing operational cleanroom carries an uncommon set of issues and concerns. Addressing these issues in advance of construction will ensure a successful retrofit project while maintaining targeted production and existing yield levels. It is unrealistic to expect to maintain optimum production levels during retrofit; however, proper planning and sequencing of work will ensure a minimum of unexpected events that affect budget, time, and facility operation. Cost versus benefit analysis must be evaluated for each sequential step of work to evaluate its practicality. Budget and schedule success cannot merely be evaluated by the lowest cost basis or
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shortest construction duration but more by the optimum compromise of schedule, cost, and lost production time and yield. Careful up-front planning and scheduling must be foremost in thought and mindset. Specific Concerns Demolition and disposal of hazardous materials often may be of concern in older facilities. Materials such as asbestos and items contaminated by process chemicals require disposal in compliance with local regulations. Maintenance of fire exit conditions and sprinkler systems during renovation often requires re-routing of piping systems, temporary disablement of sprinkler zones, and temporary egress corridors. In these areas of concern, local codes and code officials should be consulted in the planning stages to understand what work can be accomplished during normal work hours, what must be accomplished during off hours, and what must be accomplished during shutdown periods. Both EHS and insurance requirements tend to dictate the extent of these temporary measures. Material, equipment, and worker access must be addressed in planning to ensure production workers can access operational areas in a timely fashion and construction workers are not burdened with time-consuming access criteria to construction sites. Temporary access corridors and gown rooms often save significant time entering and exiting clean space for production workers. Separate construction entrances may seem to be a luxury during planning but often pay for themselves in work production in just a short period of time. Lay down and storage space for materials and components must be integral to renovation plan and schedule. Proper provisions for material handling will significantly cut labor cost and the potential for contamination generation. Constant movement and shifting of materials puts them at risk to damage and ultimately can compromise a projects completion. Careful planning and construction management allows for just-in-time deliveries and ease of staging of materials for installation, requiring the minimum amount of staging area and maximum amount of flexibility. We cannot ignore cost when evaluating the upgrade of a facility, nor do we suggest it should be last on your list of concerns. Simply, this issue becomes the most complicated to evaluate. In the process of facility renovation, while maintaining operation, cost is not necessarily equal to price, as we previously addressed when discussing the issue of production window of opportunity. Actual cost must include price of the work along with lost production, potential for lost yield, and inconvenience. In reality, often actual cost cannot fully be detailed until well after the project is complete. The only true preventive steps you can take are to carefully select your contractor and base your decision not only on their price but also on their experience, reputation, proposed schedule, and operational plan to complete the work.
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Implementing the Renovation Plan The first step requires that we survey the existing facility to determine how closely documented plans reflect actual existing conditions. Identifying the level by which we can rely on the facility plans will significantly affect the aggressiveness of the schedule, material stock requirements, and man loading. At the same time we are surveying the existing conditions, we must survey acceptable components within the marketplace to match existing facility conditions where required and understand their availability to meet schedule and performance requirements. Material selection may depend more on its availability to meet the required schedule than anything else. We must set performance criteria and prioritize price, product, and delivery issues. A detailed sequence of work to be performed now must be documented and incorporated into a preliminary schedule. The preliminary schedule must then be compared with the production requirements of the facility and other potential events that would require schedule flexibility. In areas of schedule conflict, the team must determine priorities and adapt requirements appropriately. This part of the work is the most critical to overall project success. Consideration has to be given to squeezing or expanding construction task durations to match schedules and maintain a cooperative interface. Overall project duration must be measured considering holiday schedules, manpower availability, man loading within a confined workspace, and, most importantly, continued operation of the facility. A potential significant cost issue, which depends greatly on our schedule flexibility and confidence in the documentation of the existing conditions, is excess material stock. What and how much excess stock material we require must be weighed with potential for restocking, the associated charges and the critical nature of certain sequences along with lead time availability of potential shortfall products. Local sourcing of as many materials as possible must be achieved to properly plan for possible contingencies. Construction area separation must be maintained at all times. Consideration should be given above the ceiling, in duct systems, plenums, return walls, conduit, and below the floor to ensure contamination spread from demolition is both minimal and contained. The window of down time for work has now opened. Removal or protection of existing equipment and curtaining off of the actual construction area can now be achieved. This action must be performed with painstaking detail to eliminate potential for compromise of the existing operational facility and delays in restarting production or yield percentage in the renovated area. Whenever and wherever possible, equipment should be removed or isolated from the construction area. Demolition should occur in accordance with a sequential plan with materials removed from the controlled area and properly disposed of. A slow deliberate process should be utilized to minimize contamination generation; hazardous
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materials should be identified in advance and removed according to regulations. Contamination-generating materials should be properly bagged upon removal and immediately removed from the critical environment. A staging area for outgoing and incoming materials should be established. Personnel should be badged and identified as critical environment workers and noncritical environment workers. The established acceptable protocol should be identified and maintained at all times. Products identified as salvageable and slated for re-installation or re-use should be identified immediately upon removal to the staging area and be cleaned and wrapped for storage. When re-installing they should be unwrapped and cleaned with the accordance of the incoming material protocol. With demolition complete, re-installation of the salvaged materials and new material installation can now begin. All materials should be treated as new and follow the incoming material protocol. Construction should occur under a build clean protocol that is equal to or exceeds that of the operating facility. Final (super) clean should occur prior to removal of

temporary construction barriers. Equipment should then be moved in through the staging area under the incoming material protocol and set in place under operating protocol conditions. PRINCIPLES FOR CONTROLLING COSTS Design to the appropriate level of contamination control required. Design for changing conditions. Design utilities to be easily connected and disconnected. Design utilities to flow at adequate rates, constant pressure, and typical levels of purity. Place much of the process equipment outside of the clean environment. Control entry and egress of people, material, and equipment. Provide for ease of maintenance, access, and periodic inspections. Manage each of the disciplines to the approved project budget throughout the design and the construction phases.

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ASHRAE Transactions: Symposia