Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

Allentown, PA

CLIENT/OWNER: Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

For over a decade, BIA has had the privilege of providing engineering design to Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (APCI), an international industrial gas and industrial process equipment company and a producer of chemicals. Headquartered within a few miles of BIA's corporate office, APCI has offices and plants in England, Africa, Europe, and Asia. In the United States, the company has manufacturing plants and distribution centers in 43 states and the District of Columbia.

BIA has provided surveying, civil, structural, environmental, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering services on a wide variety of new construction and plant upgrade projects, principally in Pennsylvania, but also in Middleton, OH, and LaPorte, TX.

BIA prepared site plans for West III, a 40,500-square-foot nitrogen trifluoride plant at APCI's Hometown, PA, facility that was designed in the first half of 2000 and is now in operation. The project included the design of sewer connections to an existing on-site waste water treatment plant, the extension of water lines to an on-site well, and the design of a regional detention basin. It also allowed for the future inclusion of a railroad spur. This project included a utility survey consisting of the use of a utility location subcontractor and the survey location of underground utilities. Other BIA civil engineering projects at Hometown included site design of the hydrogen fluoride unloading facility, design of an access driveway, and upgrades and modifications to employee parking areas.

Also at the Hometown campus, BIA designed a secondary fire water supply system to augment the existing pond. The project included the design, drawings, and specifications for the construction of a new pump house, fire pump, new fire water main, and connection from the pump to existing eight-inch loop, fire hydrant, and backflow connection. Our services included writing the procurement specifications for the new fire pump and pump house, providing electrical design, drawings and specifications for a new electrical service to feed the fire pump as well as control and alarm tie-ins to the existing fire alarm system, and providing a construction cost estimate.