• Question: what is the biggest product you have worked on?

    Asked by fahyda to Graham, Luke, Maksim, Ruth on 14 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Graham Wiggins

      Graham Wiggins answered on 14 Jun 2014:

      fahyda,
      How do you mean big ? big in terms of results, or bigest size ?
      Big on both counts for me has to be Vulcan Laser, and it’s new ( well, 10 yrs old now ) Petawat target area.
      The laser itself is 25 meters by 50mtrs, target room is 15m x 15m x 4m tall.
      Target chamber ( where laser is focused ) is the sixe of a big van. and much heavier.
      Laser power on target is 1 Petawatt…. or,
      1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 watts
      that’s BIG… actually, it soooo big, it’s several thousand times more powerful than the National Grid.
      ( so we charge our own capacitors – like batteries – to store the electricity, so that the lights don’t dip when we fire the laser )
      That was a World Record in 2005, I think we still hold it – maybe you can check to find out ????
      Again BIG in many ways.
      Graham

    • Photo: Ruth Gregory

      Ruth Gregory answered on 14 Jun 2014:

      I can’t really call the things I work on products, however the largest structure that I have surveyed would be the Midland Links in Birmingham. They are massive bridges (we call them viaducts) supporting the motorways into Birmingham City Centre. We had to use an underbridge MEWP (mobile elevated bridge) unit to reach the underside of the structure. I had to tap the soffit with a hammer, take loads of photos and take notes of the condition of the structure.

      The biggest thing I have made is a railway station with a team of 40 people with different skills. I used a distance measurement tool to set out the positions of what they had to build and make sure the quality was to a high standard.

    • Photo: Luke Fry

      Luke Fry answered on 15 Jun 2014:

      So for me the largest experiment I’ve worked on size wise is the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. It is an electron synchrotron with a circumference of nearly a kilometre for the beam pipe!
      I also work on an experiment called MICE (Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment) which is much smaller in size but is a huge international collaboration with institutions from around the globe working together.
      I will be flying out to CERN tomorrow which is another huge collaboration you may have heard about!

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      the biggest project i have ever worked on is currently the new smart bridge in glasgow check it out here …….
      http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/clydes-smartbridge-takes-shape

Comments