Airport_Business_February-March_2020 - 36

PROJECT DELIVERY
AUTHOR Nick Purohit, Nikhil Dadhaniya

Water Storage
System Design
FOR THE TURKISH AIRLINES' NEW
ISTANBUL AIRPORT IN TURKEY
How planners tackled a major plumbing challenge
at one of the world's newest major airports.
WHEN THE Government of Turkey made a bullish
announcement to construct the world's largest
airport 30 kms away from the present Ataturk airport,
it was incomprehensible for most of the architects
and engineers to visualize such a mammoth project.
The project is spread over 167
hectares with capacity to accommodate
150 PEX (million passengers per year)
and that presented several challenges
to architects and engineering company.
Ghafari Associate LLC already had
made big strides in designing complex
airport systems around the world
from Columbia, USA, Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Abu Dhabi, China, Nicaragua,
Philippines and India, but nobody had
designed an airport of this magnitude
and complexity.
Ghafari played a major role in the
architectural and engineering design for
numerous mission critical buildings with

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NIKHIL DADHANIYA
Nick Purohit and
Nikhil Dadhaniya
are mechanical
engineers with
Ghafari Associates
LLC.

NICK PUROHIT

total area of 7.2 million sq. ft. (700,000
sq. meters) including world's largest
catering facility with capacity to prepare
250,000 meals per day. Additional
buildings included Air Staff Terminal,
MRO, Line Maintenance Hangar,
Cargo Facility, Operation Center, and
three energy centers called TRIGEN
plant to generate power, chilled water
and steam/hot water simultaneously by
utilizing natural gas.
This article will focus on the
plumbing challenges and water storage
facility design for the catering facility.
It is a well-known fact that the Turkish
Airlines' sky meal is considered the best
in the world and we had to be cognizant
of the plumbing challenge to support
their high standards.
We were mandated to provide
storage for 1.5 days' worth of water
consumption. The facility was designed
to prepare 250,000 meals per day for
passengers and an additional 5,000
meals per day for the catering facility
employees. The facility encompasses
several specialty kitchens or spaces for
preparation of multiple different cuisines

36 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020

View of pump room equipment
and accessories
GHAFARI ASSOCIATES

such as Turkish, Arabic, Continental,
Chinese, Indian, Italian, kosher, halal,
bakery, breads, salads, desserts, business
class meals, etc. The first challenge
was to estimate peak water demand
and the daily demand. Both numbers
varied from country to country and
from the facility operators to operators.
For an example, water demand varied
depending on different countries
cuisines and from facility operators to
operators. In general, water demand
varied from 2.1 to 5.3 gallons (8 to
20 liters) per meal. Another challenge
was to estimate water consumption for
5,000 catering facility employees for
bathing, toilet and other personal use.
For example, India consumes 24 gallons
(91 liters) per capita per day versus USA's
consumption of 50 gallons (191 liters)
per capita per day.
If we had based our calculations
on 2.64 gallons (10 liters) per meal,
then 660,000 gallons (2,500,000 liters)
of water would be consumed per
day. Conversely if we had based our
calculations on 5.3 gallons (20 liters) per
meal then the consumption would have
Airport_Business_February-March_2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Airport_Business_February-March_2020
