The Possible Projects Available

THE POSSIBLE PROJECTS AVAILABLE

Our project involved working with Laing O’Rourke, a company whom our school had previously worked with, to solve a real engineering problem within their organisation.

Laing O’Rourke is one of the largest global private construction businesses, consisting of a variety of engineering, construction, manufacturing and other services companies, working throughout the world in many different sectors of industry. The fact that the company’s head office is situated in Dartford, and therefore within minutes of our school, provided not only a close link between us, but also an opportunity to gain an insight into the industry by working with one of its leading companies.

In terms of the project itself, after meeting with our engineer from Laing O’Rourke, Richard Tomkins, he gave us two choices:

Option 1: Wind Turbine Base

The Aim

To model a conceptual design for a wind turbine base in order to assess its properties for use in the construction of an off-shore wind farm.

Key Facts/Features:

• A design is already in place from our team but it is very much at the concept stage. It has not been built, tested or finalised as yet.

• The turbinebase will be constructed on shore and towed to location at sea where it will be filled with water and sunk to the ocean bed.

• For testing to be successful, the model must be to scale and have similar buoyancy/weight distribution properties.

Testing Required:

• Assessment of buoyancy

• Assessment of capability to be towed and optimum towing attachment location

• Assessment of ability to resist inclement weather, i.e. wind loadings, waves and currents etc.

• Assessment of ability to push down and spring back.

• Rate of sinking of the unit once flooded.

• Ability to bed down in sand, silt and ripples, etc.

• Any other issues or problems you can think of.

He also presented us with a sketch of the concept, in order for us to gain a visual idea of the problem and potential solution. However, due to potential copyright issues, the sketch was a simplified version of the design already created by his team.

Option 2: Conveyor Belt for Top-Down Muck Away

The Aim:

To design and model a conveyor belt for removing clay and gravel from a top-down environment.

Key Facts/Features:

• Top down construction is where you in effect cast the ground floor slab before the substructure underneath. Once the ground floor slab is constructed you undermine it and cast the slabs beneath.

• Due to a slab over your head working room is therefore cramped and all materials are taken out/in through holes in the already cast ground floor slab.

• We therefore need a conveyor belt configuration which can operate in these cramped conditions.

Testing Required:

• Conveyor angle as suitability for use

• Conveyor materials for optimum removal

• Conveyor speed

• Conveyor hopper size/design

• Safety features required

He had also prepared a PowerPoint showing thetop down construction method, as well as a sketch of the top down working environment, including hole sizes, etc.

The Decision

After reviewing both of the problems carefully, we chose unanimously to develop the wind turbine design idea, as we felt that it seemed more challenging and closely linked to the prominent issue of sustainability in engineering currently facing the industry.