Ice arena O’Brien Group Arena

Complex climate zones safely controlled with OPEN EMS

The ice rink houses two Olympic-size ice rinks, state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems, seating for up to 1,000 people, a special fitness room for winter sports, a café, a bar, and conference rooms.

The OPEN EMS system from DEOS AG was selected as the controller for the ventilation system. The DEOS building automation system was chosen specifically for the O’Brien Group Arena because DEOS holds the exclusive rights in Australia for the COBAOPT optimization system (now OPENdynamics), which was developed in Germany.

In the specific case of the ice rink, the HVAC system had to be designed so that the temperature on the ice surface was -2 °C and 1.5 m above the ice surface was 14 °C. An additional difficulty in terms of heat stratification is the ceiling height (> 10 m) as well as heat transfer and ice melting. In addition, the ice surface has two different textures. The COBAOPT system was selected as the solution. It uses a unique control algorithm that is easy to program to achieve uniform mixing of the air molecules. The result is uniform temperature distribution and energy savings in the HVAC systems.