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 | | ALUMINIUM WELDING FOR DIAMOND LIGHT SOURCE SYNCHROTRON ROOF
| | | MR Site Services | | 11/10/2006 | | | A massive 35,000 sq.metre roof on an important new science building in south Oxfordshire could not have been completed without the skills of aluminium welding.
The Diamond Light Source Synchrotron on the Harwell Chilton Science campus is the largest, UK funded scientific facility to be built for over 30 years. The futuristic doughnut-shaped building which covers the area of five football pitches houses a series of highly focussed beams of light or 'super microscopes' which enable scientists and engineers to probe deep into the basic structure of matter and materials.
Lakesmere, the contractors appointed for the building's exterior envelope, used four different types of aluminium roof panel to achieve the round building with economics of design. They had no hesitation in appointing MR Site Services of Worcester to carry out the aluminium welding of the standing seam roof and MR Site Services performed some 2km of welding to complete the task.
'Finding the right solution to achieve what we wanted was quite a challenge', explains Dave Crowley, senior quantity surveyor of Lakesmere, 'We had used MR Site Services before on projects and when we approached them they managed a good solution for us', adds Dave.
Lakesmere has been delighted with the results achieved and Dave Crowley appreciated the friendly yet professional relationship with the MR Site Services team and their willingness and ability to think their way around problems and work out the right solutions.
Dean Harrison, project manager at MR Site Services commented ' We had several meetings on site to agree the scope of the order and once this was agreed with the client, the order was placed and all went very much to plan delivering what Lakesmere required'.
MR Site Services also supplied and fitted some 1km of Quantum aluminium walkway as well as producing Snow-guard all around the roof. Both of these roof fixtures use MR Site Services' standard clips which provide a non-penetrative fixing to the roof standing seam, and some 5000 of these clips were used in total.
With the roof edge some 9 metres from ground level, Snow-guard was needed to safeguard against falling snow. This Snow-guard was specially designed and tailor made to match the taper of the roof panels of the circular roof, and uses a high grade T6 aluminium extrusion.
With the quantity of Quantum walkway required on the project, MR Site Services were keen to find an environmentally efficient means of packaging the product for transport to site, and so used aluminium packing pieces which could be recycled after use.
Construction of this major new scientific facility began in early 2003 and today the Diamond Synchrotron is on schedule to become operational in January 2007. Diamond Light Source is a Joint Venture funded by the UK Government (CCLRC 86%) and the Wellcome Trust (14%). Phase 1 investment of £250 million includes Diamond's buildings and the first seven experimental stations or beamlines.
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