Aviation Paint Bay Addition

• Aviation

The primary challenge of this paint bay was to complete a functional and constructable paint bay within an existing building, while maintaining the world class finish that the owner expects.

This paint bay is a 6,720 SF down draft paint bay with associated support spaces. It was designed and constructed to provide a superior final product while providing energy savings over older technology related to paint bay design.

Air is supplied from the ceiling plenum through 581 final filters and recirculated and exhausted through a series of grated trenches in the floor. Recirculated air passes through the filter banks, is re-conditioned before being re-introduced into the ceiling plenum where the cycle repeats.

The system is designed for the addition of future chilled water coils to provide tempered air. Support spaces around the booth include entering and exiting changing rooms, filter rooms, a corridor for filter storage, fully accessible and maintainable HVAC units, ductwork, and a conditioned electrical room.

The exit room includes filtration of the exhaust air due to the presence of hexavalent chromium. The filter rooms have access for maintaining filters with removable floor panels for washdown. The corridor for changing filters allows for bagging of used filters without contaminating surrounding spaces. The paint bay includes a touchscreen control panel that allows painters to enter the “recipe” required for each aircraft being painted. The recipes have preset functions for operation of the HVAC equipment.

The lighting within the paint bay is LED. This drastically reduces maintenance, increases lamp life, allows the lighting to be adjusted to different lighting levels depending on the task being executed in the bay and overall lower utility costs for the owner.

PEC led this project as prime designer and provided Project Management, Site Civil Engineering, Structural Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering.  PEC also provided 3D Scanning services, modeling of the aircraft travel through the building, Survey, Geotechnical, and Materials Testing.