• Question: What was the most challenging engineering project that you have been involved with during past year.

    Asked by QuinnyLiam to Sarah, Ryan, Priyanka, Paul, Chris on 8 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Priyanka Dhopade

      Priyanka Dhopade answered on 8 Mar 2016:

      The most challenging project I was involved with in the past year required designing an experiment that would re-create the inside of a hot turbine section of a jet engine. This had to be full scale (so a meter in diameter!) and super hot (around 700 degrees Celcius)!
      This experiment would be used to test out our new cooling system that uses cold air from the outside to cool the metal parts in the experiment to stop it from melting! We spent over £1 million to build it and used it to prove that our new cooling system works!

      It was challenging because we had to make sure the experiment was going to be safe and not hurt anyone else in the lab. I also built a computer model of the experiment so that we would know in advance whether it was going to be dangerous or not!

    • Photo: Christine Coonick

      Christine Coonick answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      Great question! The most challenging project I was involved in was probably developing the solar powered vaccine fridges. The solar fridges need to be designed to work anywhere around the world, and most of the countries that needed them were in Africa, Asia and South America where it is really hot and humid. And guess what? Fridges really don’t like hot & humid environments. The higher the temperature = the more energy the fridge needs to keep cool = the more solar power you need to have.

      I had the great job of spending days upon days in my environmental chamber trying out new and novel ways to get the system to work properly at 43 degC and in 95% relative humidity. I soon learnt to bring a change of clothes and not wear glasses 🙂

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