Caterpillar – Hydraulic Excavator Facility

This design-build project is an excavator assembly plant for Caterpillar in Victoria, Texas. The new facility provides subassembly, assembly, painting, and final inspection of various hydraulic excavator models. Included in the over 900,000 square feet of floor space is office areas, FEMA shelters, assembly stations, logistics area, an industrial paint line, inspection areas, and excavator testing conveyor lines. The facility utilizes a Honeywell DDC controls system for temperature control and energy monitoring of the facility.

The building’s mechanical systems include a central, water-cooled chiller plant consisting of three 800-ton, high-efficiency centrifugal chillers with variable-speed drives, three cooling towers and variable-speed fans, three variable-speed condenser water pumps and three variable-speed, chilled-water pumps for variable/primary chilled water distribution.

For the assembly plant area, NDBS designed a system that utilizes McQuay roof mounted, chilled-water air handling units with bypass dampers for humidity control, variable speed supply and return fans, 2-way modulating chilled-water control valves and modulating gas heat exchangers with 20:1 turndown. The interior plant offices are served by indoor VAV chilled-water air handling units and VAV terminal units with electric heating for zone control.
The excavator conveyor line tests the engines at various stations and is equipped with a source capture system for point-of-use exhaust and general exhaust fans controlled by CO detectors to maintain CO concentrations well below the OSHA permissible exposure limits.