What I liked
During this internship, I worked as a mechanical engineering intern mostly doing HVAC and utilities such as chilled water and heating hot water. My first task was to perform airflow calculations on the air handling units (AHUs) in the warehouse and utility buildings of a pharmaceutical plant. The goal was to calculate heating and cooling required for each AHU, and the flow of chilled and hot water in order to do so. Another task was to calculate the energy savings of heat recovery wheels in the AHUs. I learned about the different types of heat recovery systems such as the heat recovery wheel and the heat recovery coil. These use the temperature of the return air to heat or cool the outside air coming in, and therefore results in less chilled and hot water required. My last project was to edit airflow and instrumentation diagrams (AF&IDs) using AutoCAD. In addition to those projects, I also had some smaller tasks such as making pump and heat exchanger selections. The thing that I liked the most about this internship was the variety of people I was able to work with. I worked with people at all levels of the company and at various stages of their careers. This allowed me to get different perspectives about how people handle projects and tasks. I also enjoyed the various intern events that allowed me to meet other interns and learn about different departments such as mechanical, piping, architectural, structural, electrical, and digital delivery. I learned about how these departments must work together in order to stay on schedule and deliver an end goal. Overall, I feel like I learned a lot about HVAC and utilities in a commercial setting.
