Britain is emerging from some of the toughest social restrictions placed in peacetime history. As people come out of their homes, they are eager to meet friends and loved ones, and head back out into the world – but they are scared.

To help keep people safe in a world gripped by Covid-19, and to adapt to the new behaviours of the population, episode partner Atkins (part of the SNC-Lavalin Group) has been advising local authorities on how best to modify their public spaces, and to cope with the new normal.

We learn about some of the recommendations from new public guidance, the support available from government, and how some of Britain’s built environment is more prepared for a post-Covid world than expected.

GUESTS

Neil Manthorpe, Associate Director – Landscape Architecture & Urban Design, Atkins
Robbie Claase, Associate Director – Infrastructure, Atkins

SUPPORTER

Atkins, part of the SNC-Lavalin Group, is one of the world’s most respected design, engineering and project management consultancies.

Employing over 18,000 people across the UK, North America, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe, Atkins utilities the latest technology to deliver major capital projects, and provide expert consultancy for clients across the energy, transportation and infrastructure sectors.

LINKS

Coronavirus: Safer Public Places – Urban Centres and Green Spaces 

The post #60 Covid 19: Creating safer spaces first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Engineers are in a uniquely powerful position. Able to shape our built environment and so influence the direction of civilisation, the impact that their expertise can have for the good of society and the environment is incredible.

But people are human, and if a negative culture is allowed to thrive in the organisations that employ them, or if no attention is paid to understanding how problems are approached, history has taught us that fatal disaster can be the result. It is vital that every member of the profession is ethically competent, working in a way that assures a positive outcome.

For this episode we have teamed up with consultant Mott MacDonald and the Inter Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre at Leeds University to explore how engineers can be empowered to practice ethically and we uncover the true story behind Canada’s mysterious iron ring ceremony.

GUESTS

Mike Haigh, Executive Chair, Mott MacDonald
Leonard Sharah, Chief Warden, Corporation of the Seven Wardens
Emma Crichton, Head of Engineering, Engineers Without Borders
Jim Baxter, Professional Ethics Consultancy Team Lead, University of Leeds
Rob Lawlor, Lecturer in Applied Ethics, University of Leeds
Peter Bonfield, President, Institution of Engineering and Technology
Mark Enzer, Chief Technical Officer, Mott MacDonald
Shannon Chance, Visiting Professor, UCL

PARTNER

Mott MacDonald: Opening opportunities with connected thinking.

Mott MacDonald is a US$2bn engineering, management and development consultancy involved in: 

• solving some of the world’s most urgent social, environmental and economic challenges
• helping governments and businesses plan, deliver and sustain their strategic goals
• responding to humanitarian and natural emergencies
• improving people’s lives 

Its expertise by sector includes buildings, communications, defence, education, environment, health, industry, mining, oil and gas, power, transport, urban development, water, wastewater and more. Its skills encompass planning, studies and design, project finance, technical advisory services, project and programme management, management consultancy and beyond

The post #59 Empowering Ethical Engineering first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Since mid-2019, over 900 architectural practices in the UK have made a declaration of climate and biodiversity emergency, acknowledging the extreme seriousness of our situation and making a public commitment to positive change.

Now joined by declarations from other disciplines in the construction industry, the growing movement needs coordination or it risks becoming siloed.

In this episode we interview the man coordinating these engineering declarations: IStructE Gold Medal winner Mike Cook, and we look at a career spent trying to work with nature, rather than against it.

Guests:

Dr Mike Cook, Project Principal, Buro Happold

The post #58 Construction declares climate emergency first appeared on Engineering Matters.

The coronavirus pandemic that has torn through society has also seen supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) depleted at an alarming rate. As doctors and nurses are forced to improvise, and traditional suppliers struggle to meet the sudden increase in demand, help has arrived from an unexpected group of enthusiasts. The 3D printing community has come to the rescue.

Thousands of volunteers are sacrificing their sleep to produce emergency PPE, and to buy time for supply chains to adjust to a new reality. We speak with three people who may be changing the way manufacturing works for good.

GUESTS

Tony Thompson, Engineering and Electrical Assessor, Northampton College

Mark Hester, Technology Director, The Imagination Factory

Richard Hague, Director of the Centre for Additive Manufacturing, University of Nottingham

NOTES

If you would like to support Tony and Lyn Thompson, click here

To donate to their organising group, Print for Victory, click here

And if you would like to lend your aid to 3D Crowd UK, click here

The last time we spoke to Richard Hague from the University of Nottingham was in episode #19 Future of 3D Printing

The post #57 Printing versus the pandemic: COVID 19 first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Biodiversity in the UK is facing an emergency with around 30 percent of native species becoming extinct since the 1970s. This loss of wildlife, which echoes trends all over the world, could have catastrophic impacts on food, air quality and the environment. However for the UK change is on the horizon with a new Environment Bill seeking to reverse this with requirements for developers to deliver an increase in biodiversity on their projects –  a concept known as biodiversity net gain.

This update on our episode from August 2019, gives additional insight into the details of the new requirements. It finds that although the current COVID 19 induced crisis is reducing global carbon emissions and bringing some environment benefits, biodiversity remains under threat.

Guests
Dr Julia Baker, Author, Biodiversity Net Gain: Good Practice Principals for Development
Tom Butterworth, Technical Director for Biodiversity, WSP
Caroline Maghanga, Senior Ecologist, Mott MacDonald

The post #56 The Biodiversity Emergency first appeared on Engineering Matters.

How data from satellites can track structural movement, and give early warning of potential failure. New research shows that catastrophic bridge collapses could have been prevented if engineers had been paying attention to the right information, information that is currently being collected by satellites orbiting our planet. Satellite monitoring is one of the many innovations to come from the burgeoning space sector, and we explore a new tool developed between the UK’s Satellite Applications Catapult and Canada’s National Research Council that will allow asset managers to turn to data produced in orbit, to protect bridges back on earth.

In this episode we speak to the engineers making this possible, and their terrestrial counterparts now tasked with figuring out how best to use this new perspective.

Guests

Cristian Rossi, Principal Earth Observation Specialist, Satellite Applications Catapult

Daniel Cusson, Senior Research Officer, Construction Research Centre of the National Research Council Canada

Paul Febvre, Chief Technology Officer, Satellite Applications Catapult

Andrei Popa, Senior Bridge Engineer, Atkins

Anna Fitzgerald, Highways Systems Manager, Oxfordshire County Council

Charlie Davies, Innovation and Research Engineer, Costain

Stuart Martin, CEO, Satellite Applications Catapult

Lucy Edge, Chief Operating Officer, Satellite Applications Catapult

Sam Li, Senior Innovation Lead, Transport for Greater Manchester

Sam Adlen, Chief Strategy Officer, Satellite Applications Catapult

Partner

Satellite Applications Catapult

The Satellite Applications Catapult is a technology and innovation company, created to drive economic development through the exploitation of space. The Catapult is a not-for-profit organisation that works with businesses of all sizes to realise their potential from space.

Resources 

• Combined InSAR and Terrestrial Structural Monitoring of Bridges
• Pre-Collapse Space Geodetic Observations of Critical Infrastructure: the Morandi Bridge, Italy
• Historic assessment of Tadcaster Bridge

Brigital project Funding Sources

• Innovate UK
• National Research Council Canada
• Transport Canada
• Infrastructure Canada

The post #55 Saving Structures with Satellites first appeared on Engineering Matters.

Carving out underground space for railways, roads, waterways, urban development and even fishing and farming is how some people spend their entire careers.

One of those people is chair of the International Tunnelling Association Young Members Committee Keith Bannerman, who was obsessed by the industry from the moment he attended a short course in Brisbane and met “real rock star tunnellers”. These people shared their love of a vibrant industry full of opportunity, risk, and challenge. He was captivated and brings his experience working on a variety of excavations such as the Brisbane Airport Link, to help others realise their future underground.

We sat down with Keith last month while he was on a visit to London to ask what got him hooked and what advice he has for others.

GUEST

Keith Bannerman, chair of the International Tunnelling Association Young Members committee and Senior Associate at Bamser

The post #54 Keith Bannerman: A life underground first appeared on Engineering Matters.

As cases of COVID 19 explode, the World Health Organisation is urging countries around the world to learn from South Korea. Before even recording its first case  of the virus its technology industries mobilised, enabling it to test anyone with symptoms, perform extensive contact tracing and isolate those at risk – fast. This enabled the country to protect its 51 million inhabitants as early as possible.

In the UK, two months after its first reported case of the virus, government is now working on contact tracing apps and increasing testing. But private companies are taking the lead. We talk to the developer of the UK’s first mobile app for COVID 19, healthcare start-up Zoe, which had 1.8million users within the first week of its launch. Working with Kings College London on the COVID 19 Symptom Tracker, we discover that this new tool in tracking coronavirus all began with a study on identical twins.

GUESTS

Ben Travers, Head of Intellectual Property and IT at Stephens Scown

Julien Lavigne du Cadet, Vice President of Engineering, Zoe

RESOURCES

WHO Situation Updates

Oxford University: Research into COVID 19 genealogy paper

Korea’s Centre for Disease Prevention and Control daily updates

Korea Central Accident Investigation Headquarters reports

The post #53 Technology vs biology: fighting COVID 19 first appeared on Engineering Matters.

How a new 2.5km cable pulled railway will connect Luton Airport’s terminal to the UK rail network boosting future growth. Today rail passengers arriving at the airport must disembark from the train and finish their journey on a shuttle bus. But not for much longer. Deep sheet piles are currently being driven into the ground to set out a cut and cover tunnel that will deliver a new rail link under the airport’s existing infrastructure. These piles will cut through clay and chalk and need to resist the load of major buildings and huge aeroplanes. This calls for a massive and complex temporary support system.

GUESTS
Dan Hobson, section manager, Volker Fitzpatrick
Phil Hobson, project director, Kier
Andy Simms, major projects manager, Groundforce Shorco
Mark Whitmore, general manager for major projects, Groundforce Shorco
Richard Wildish, tunnel section agent, Kier

PARTNER
This episode is created in partnership with Groundforce Shorco

Groundforce Shorco are market leaders in excavation support safety, providing a wide range of products from trench boxes to high end hydraulic propping solutions. With 40 years of experience its people provide first class support from initial enquiry to project completion; linked with an award-winning technical service department, Groundforce Shorco fulfils customer’s excavation solutions throughout UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.

See more at: https://www.vpgroundforce.com/gb/

The post #52 Tunnelling Podcast: Propping up Luton Airport’s new rail link first appeared on Engineering Matters.

The rapid and

Guests

Judy Anderson, Global Head of Water, Mott MacDonald
Mark Enzer, Chief Technical Officer, Mott MacDonald
Sean Horkan, Head of Strategic Asset Management, Mott MacDonald
David Viner, Global Head of Climate Resilience, Mott MacDonald
Howard Watson, Chief Technical Officer, BT Openreach

Partner

Mott MacDonald: Opening opportunities

Mott MacDonald is a US$2bn engineering,

• solving some of the world’s most urgent social,

The post #51 Covid 19: Disaster Resilient Infrastructure first appeared on Engineering Matters.