Monkey business

Primate research units, 'primadomes' added during New Iberia project

By Karla Wall

Construction will be completed in early 2006 on the $8.3 million expansion of the New Iberia Research Center that houses primate research programs.

The project, headed by M.D. Descant Inc. of Bunkie, will add approximately 34,000 sq. ft. to the facility, including two primate research/housing units and five "primadomes," or primate housing units.

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette owns the 100-acre center, located on a former naval base just outside New Iberia. Construction began in July 2004.

The five primadomes, three measuring 2,500 sq. ft. and two 1,500 sq. ft., will be arranged in a semicircular pattern and are open to the air and joined by breezeways or walkways. The two research buildings - one housing a chimpanzee unit and the other a rhesus monkey unit - include lab facilities, anterooms, locker and cleanup areas for employees and up to 16 large cages for the animals.

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Project manager Trent Descant said foundation work for the buildings consisted of 30 25-ft.-deep poured-in-place concrete pile shafts.

Electrical work began last fall, before actual construction started, said Eddie Bienvenue of E.P. Breaux Electrical of New Iberia. All primary services to the area were rerouted, trenched under the foundation in 3- to 4-ft. trenches during a six-hour outage, Bienvenue said.

The outage was carefully coordinated to avoid disruption of activities in the existing facilities.

"We couldn't just take any outage we wanted," Bienvenue said. "The owner has a pretty tight schedule."

He added that compaction for the underground electrical work meant dealing with conditions that were either too dry or too wet for most of the project's duration.

The existing 200 ft. of 400-mcm cable feed was replaced with 600-mcm cable to increase conductive capacity. A new 1,000-kw pad-mounted transformer replaced the existing 750-kw unit in the primadome area and a new transformer was pole-mounted for the research and housing units, Beinvenue said.

The exterior walls of each building are formed of brick veneer, with about 200,000 bricks used in the project.

"This has been a large masonry job," Descant said. Lewis Masonry of Bunkie performed masonry work.

Interior walls of the buildings were formed with 8- by 8- by 16-in. concrete blocks, and all cells were poured with solid concrete. Roughly 3,000 cu. yds. of concrete were used in the total project, Descant said. A main concern with the exterior concrete work was moisture control, and all blocks were dried and cured correctly in the South Louisiana humidity.

Door facings and frames on each of the two research facilities will be of a polymer/fiberglass material, Descant added.

Design of the research buildings was done under restrictions and requirements for biohazard safety levels two and three, said project architect John Robbins of Bate/Robbins Architects in New Iberia.

Requirements for exhaust, ventilation, temperature control and airflow had to be incorportated into the design.

About 35,000 sq. ft. of polymer flooring is being used on the primadomes and the research buildings. It is manufactured and installed by Stonhard Inc. of Shreveport.

The floor will be seamless and trowel-installed with an integral-coat base. Trowel installation allows for a thicker, more durable floor, said Dave Reich, Shreveport territory manager for Stonhard. Installation in all the buildings should take about five weeks.

The Stonclad flooring was chosen because "it'll hold up to the chimps," Reich added.

The flooring consists of several layers, including a substrate, a primer coating, the troweled Stonclad material and a protective coating. The flooring is used extensively for veterinary hospitals and animal holding facilities.

Several major electrical systems are being installed for the project, Bienvenue said. E.P. Breaux installed housing and contacts for security access systems, temperature control systems, safety latches and locking mechanisms on doors.

Temperature control is critical in this project, Bienvenue said.

"If the temperature fluctuates, it can affect the baseline (of experiments and research)," he added.

Two chillers in the power plant behind the main research building will supply the rhesus and chimpanzee research buildings. The primadomes each have a self-contained air-conditioning unit and control system, Beinvenue said. Switches at each pod will allow for individual control.

He added that the main gear center for the system will be routed underground to each pod or building. About 1,500 ft. of cable will be used in the research facilities and about 5,000 ft. in the pod areas.

Interior conduit is fed overhead through a combination of rigid or electromagnetic conduit. Two main pipe racks will be mounted on the steel superstructure and will be placed along the corridors in the research facilities. Most of the feeds will be dedicated and will be installed in conjunction with the interior walls.

"They'll be assembled in the concrete blocks," Bienvenue said.

A 1,040-kw natural-gas-powered backup generator, weighing around 37,000 lbs., was installed behind the main research facility using a 60-ton crane.

"Backup power is crucial," Bienvenue said. "The owner has to be able to maintain ventilation, lighting and equipment, and temperature control even when the primary power is out."

Descant said the project is spread out, making the coordination of deliveries difficult.

"We have to make sure that tools, equipment and materials are delivered to the correct portion of the site," he added.

Weather conditions have also been a concern. Rain delays affected the underground work for the electrical portion of the project.

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For more information and background about the New Iberia Research Center, go to: http://nirc.louisiana.edu/