200 metres of route across seven floors and two buildings
When the laboratory medicine department of Kyung Hee University Hospital moved from the 2nd to the 9th floor of a neighbouring building, the blood collection room had to stay where it was. Since then AirLab has bridged around 200 metres at 4.1 bar – awarded in a public tender and decided by a live test over eight floors.
total route, horizontal and vertical, through two buildings
operating pressure instead of the usual 3.0 bar
haemolysis rate since go-live in 2023
From the 2nd to the 9th floor across two buildings
Kyung Hee University Hospital is the only hospital in South Korea that offers Western medicine and Traditional Korean Medicine under one roof; over decades this has grown into a sprawling complex of many floors and buildings. In September 2023 the laboratory medicine department moved from the 2nd floor of the main building to the 9th floor of an adjoining building. The blood collection room had to stay on the 2nd floor for outpatients. Done by hand, each trip would have meant two or three changes of lift, a vertical climb of 28 to 40 metres and a total route of around 200 metres.
The contract was awarded after a live test over eight floors
As a state-regulated institution, the hospital had to put the project out to public tender. The key bottleneck: no supplier could show reliable references for transport over such heights and across building boundaries. So Aerocom rebuilt the route in its own company building – a validation loop from the ground floor to the 8th floor that replicated the pressure differences, airflow conditions and friction coefficients of the planned installation. The board and the lab managers watched sample transport there in real time instead of having it described on slides; this proof decided the award.
4.1 bar over 200 metres, three years without a haemolysis incident
Two weeks went into route planning, core drilling and the structural link between the two buildings alone. Conventional pneumatic systems work at around 3.0 bar; this route got a high-pressure configuration at 4.1 bar. Two pressure gauges in the terminal monitor input and system pressure, and an analogue fine-adjustment system allows micro-adjustments on site. Together with gentle deceleration profiles at the receiver, this has kept the haemolysis rate at zero since go-live. The economic side effect: blood collection stayed barrier-free on the lower floor, while the lab uses space in the neighbouring building.
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