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Asked by murpster to Andrew, Angela, Eleanor, Emma, Withdrawn on 7 Mar 2016.
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Andrew Pidgeon answered on 7 Mar 2016:
I was designing some technology for a large UK city so it involved me travelling throughout the week between London and Manchester.
I got to work with lots of different people but then go shopping when I had finished work (plus eat nice food!)
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Eleanor Sherwen answered on 15 Mar 2016:
My most exciting day ever as an engineer was when I went to see the foundry in Poland, they make castings for our bicycles. The place was HUGE and dark, with molten metal glowing everywhere, it was so dramatic. I was shown around by the chief engineer – he didn’t speak any English and I didn’t speak any Polish, but we found out we could communicate with sketches and pointing because engineering was our shared language. We were moving so fast through the engineering concepts we left our translator in the dust.
He took me over to where the pressed sand moulds had just had liquid iron poured into them, glowing red hot, and made a gesture to say “you can touch the side of it”. I waved back to say “NO WAY! You first mate!” and he pressed his hands against the sand and grinned. So I did the same and was really surprised – my hands were inches away from liquid metal but the sand was only a tiny bit warm, like a cup of tea that’s been forgotten. It was totally surreal.
Basically the sand has such a low transmission of heat that as well as being a really good thing to make a mould out of, it keeps the heat trapped in the casting for longer. This lets the iron solidify slowly, allowing the crystalline strucutre to develop better into larger, less brittle grains and making the casting tough.
It was the most exhilarating demonstration of an engineering concept I’d ever experienced. Who knows what else I will get to see and do in the years to come?
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