081112 The King's School, Gloucester, Third Form Trip to Arup & Mabey Bridge
On the 8th of November 2012 the King’s school third form went on a trip to Mabey Bridge, Chepstow and Arup’s Bristol offices. The trip was linked in to our independent learning project on “Energy: Supply and Demand”.
On the 8th of November 2012 the King’s school third form went on a trip to Mabey Bridge, Chepstow and Arup’s Bristol offices. The trip was linked in to our independent learning project on “Energy: Supply and Demand”.
First of all I visited Mabey Bridge which is a company that has only recently joined the renewable energy market. We were first split into groups and then taken around the factory. We were shown what happens to a piece of steel to make it into a wind turbine tower. This process involved:
• cleaning
the metal was taken through a cleaner where any impurities from the mill were removed
• cutting
the metal sheets were cut to size by computer controlled machinery
• bending
the pieces of metal were bent into the size of tubes that were needed. Precision measurements are needed to ensure the join, where the steel sheet meets is seamless.
• welding
after the bending of the metal, pieces are welded together and formed into sections
• painting
the sections are then painted with molten aluminium. This protects the turbine from corrosion.
The afternoon visit to Arup’s offices in Bristol was really inspiring. Arup is a worldwide company offering many services including the engineering of products relating to energy production. We were taken through the stages of a building from the ideas of an architect, through design and to construction – “making a dream reality”. We were shown some of the projects Arup have been involved with. These included: the Sydney Opera House, the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, the construction of the St Pancras Station extension and High Speed 1 (Channel Tunnel Rail link). We learnt about how Arup are involved in more projects to create sustainable and renewable energy sources.
Whilst at Arup we received an excellent careers talk, another talk on renewable energy and took part in two activities, one focused on the value of communication being essential between the architect, consultant and construction contractor and the other activity was to design a tower as high as possible, to support as much weight as possible, using only paper and staples.
I think I can speak for the whole year when I say that we all thoroughly enjoyed the trip and massive thanks goes to the organisers from the school, Mabey Bridge and Arup who made it such an interesting trip.
Harvey Sturgess.