Puckapunyal Army Base

During World War 1, The Puckapunyal area was first used as a mobilization and training area for Australian troops. In 1939, the area was referred to as ‘Puckapunyal Camp’. It has since been expanded, and is now a major Military Area located on a base of over 37,000 hectares.

Today it is home to the Headquarters of the Combined Arms Training Centre, School of Armour, School of Artillery, School of Transport, Army Knowledge Centre, and Joint Logistics Unit – Victoria. These facilities educate, train and support Australian military personnel and are constructed with expectations of reliability, practical efficiency, and dependable performance. 

The building’s prior cooling equipment was outdated, creating hefty energy expenses while offering suboptimal temperature transfer, compromising on climatic comfort and clean ventilation for personnel within the base. Masterflow was commissioned to rectify these gaps in efficiency and performance. 

NOTE: It would be excellent for this case study if I could learn which developer we worked with on this project. Fielders and Aurecon Group both have in-depth case studies on their website about working on this project, but it is so far unclear whether we worked with these developers (who only built residential portions in recent renovations) or on the entire base.

  • Location:Puckapunyal (VIC)
  • Industry:Defence

Our Process:

Taking into account the large physical scale of this space and the client’s individual preferences for installation, including the requirement that the new chillers would fit onto the existing concrete bases and adapt to the existing HVAC system, we identified the best-fit machinery for the Victorian government. 

One 85kW Air-Cooled Scroll Chiller from Clivet, and two 425kW Air-Cooled Scroll Chillers from Clivet, were used to replace the old cooling equipment at the Pukapunyal Army Base. Air cooled scroll chillers were an excellent candidate for this project as air cooled chillers do not use water, and as such do not require water treatment. This means a relatively simple operation, with simple maintenance and stellar reliability. They are also perfect for outdoor installation and offer low noise levels with great energy efficiency and environmental sustainability thanks to their lack of water usage.

Outcomes:

The chillers supplied were the perfect fit, providing a compact and flexible solution with controls to allow system integration thanks to the chiller’s Variable Speed Drive (VSD). 

As always, Masterflow ensured satisfaction on this project by taking the time to learn all of the client’s individual needs, applying its experience and expertise in identifying the best possible fit on the market for the project. We do not believe that clients should settle for a ‘one size fits all’ approach when the reality is that every aspect of a site can shape the needs of its HVAC system. This attention to detail is one part of what makes us Better By Degrees. 

In this case, Air Cooled Scroll Chillers by Clivet were a seamless fit for the client as they facilitated installation on the pre-existing concrete bases, were perfect for outdoor use, and offered a compact footprint while generating leaps and bounds in performance and cost efficiency over the prior units.  

Solutions Used