What happens when thousands of football fans head to the restroom at the same time?
It sounds like a funny question until you’re responsible for commissioning the plumbing systems in a stadium.
Unlike most buildings, where plumbing demand is spread throughout the day, stadiums can experience a significant surge in a matter of minutes. Halftime creates one of the biggest tests. Large groups of fixtures operate at nearly the same time, domestic water pressure needs to remain stable, booster pumps need to respond, and the sanitary system has to handle the increased flow.
So how do you know the system is ready?
Traditionally, you test it under realistic demand.
Simulating game-day demand
One of the most practical ways to commission a stadium plumbing system is to recreate the conditions it will experience during an event.
That can mean putting a lot of people to work flushing toilets and operating fixtures at the same time while the commissioning team monitors what happens throughout the system.
We’re looking at more than whether the toilets flush. Does system pressure remain where it needs to be? How do domestic water pumps respond as demand increases? Is drainage performing as intended? Are the vent systems working properly?
The goal is to put the system under realistic demand before thousands of fans do it for you.
If something isn’t working at that point, however, the project is already well into construction. A problem with piping, system pressure, or booster pump performance can be much more difficult and expensive to address in the field.
That raises a bigger question: How much of that testing can happen before the system is built?
Moving commissioning upstream
Virtual commissioning gives us a way to test system performance earlier.
Engineering calculations already tell us a great deal about how a plumbing system should perform. A data-rich digital model gives us another way to use that information before systems are installed.
When pipe sizes, slopes, fluid volumes, flow rates, and other system characteristics are built into the model as usable data, the commissioning team can begin evaluating performance virtually. We can review hydrostatic pressure at specific points in the system, evaluate larger sections, and simulate what happens to pressure as fixtures are used simultaneously.
That gives the project team another opportunity to ask questions before construction begins: What happens to system pressure as demand increases? Can the booster pumps keep up? Are there areas of the system that deserve another look?
The model isn’t replacing field commissioning. The building still needs to be tested under actual operating conditions.
It gives us an earlier test.
Finding problems when there is still time to solve them
That may be the biggest opportunity with virtual commissioning.
Finding a problem during a super flush gives the construction team an opportunity to correct it before opening day. Finding that same problem in the digital model gives the design team an opportunity to address it before it reaches the field.
That difference matters.
Digital deliverables are becoming more than a record of what was designed. When the information behind the model is structured and usable, it can become another tool for testing engineering decisions, evaluating system performance, and identifying potential issues earlier.
We still want the toilets to flush on game day.
We’d just rather know they will before 60,000+ fans arrive.