Engineering Matters

By Reby Media

Five times winner of the Publisher Podcast Awards, including Best Technology Podcast, Engineering Matters celebrates the work of engineers who use ingenuity, practicality, science, theory and determin... more

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FAQs about Engineering Matters:

How many episodes does Engineering Matters have?

The podcast currently has 400 episodes available.

Engineering Matters episodes:

October 31, 2019#34 Crisis Shelter for Mass Displacement
Noorullah Kuchai is a civil engineer, a humanitarian and a
refugee twice over. He lived in a tent in a Pakistani refugee camp for a decade
and is now dedicating his life to helping people who have been displaced by war
like he was. And the challenge is enormous. More people are being displaced by
conflict and disaster than ever before. Today 71 million people around the
world are in need of shelter, either as refugees having crossed borders to get
to safety, or by becoming homeless inside their own countries. And in most
cases these people will not get to go home for years, sometimes even decades. New
approaches are therefore needed to ensure that shelter is sustainable, durable
and socially beneficial for displaced people and the communities that host
them. To enable this, collaboration is needed between humanitarians, local
governments, academia and technical professionals to bring together those that
manage disaster on the ground, and people who are developing better shelter. We
head to the UK Shelter Forum in
London to find out more about how this knowledge gap is closing.
Episode partner is Mott
MacDonald
Guests
Dima Albadra, Research Associate, University of Bath
Tom Corsellis, Executive Director,
Shelter Centre
Jamie Johnston, Head of Global Systems, Bryden Wood
Anne Kerr, Global Head of Cities, Mott Macdonald
Nooroola Kuchai, PhD Candidate, University of Bath
Dr Francis Moran, Research Associate, University of Bath
Brett Moore, Head of Shelter and Settlements, UNHCR
Ana Ruiton, Façade Engineer, Mott MacDonald
Jake Zarins, Associate Director Disaster Risk Reduction, Habitat for Humanity
Resources
UK Shelter Forum website
Healthy Housing for the Displaced project
Engineering Hope
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 #34 Crisis Shelter for Mass Displacement first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
36min
October 17, 2019 #33 Future Factories: Driving forward industry 4.0
World leading smart robotics, industry disrupting
technologies and the next generation of augmented reality are just some of the
advances in action at Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre’s
Factory 2050. Launched in December 2015, Factory 2050 was set up as a
reconfigurable glass walled factory of the future, and since then it has helped
businesses across the country benefit from the next industrial revolution –
industry 4.0.
These include a small renewable cooling business Solar-Polar
which needed to move from prototyping to manufacturing. The results were so
exciting that the Peterborough based SME is seeking to become “The Uber of
Cooling” creating a network of electricity free cooling devices that could
revolutionise agriculture, air conditioning and medicine in developing
countries. At the other end of the scale, aerospace giant BAE Systems has
worked with Factory of the Future on combining human activity with robotic
automation, bringing cobotics into their facilities.
Engineering Matters goes inside Factory 2050.
GUESTS
Chris Greaves, Head of Integrated Manufacturing Group, AMRC
Michael Reid, Engineering Director, Solar Polar
The post #33 Future Factories: Driving forward industry 4.0 first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
23min
October 03, 2019 #32 The untold story of Eiffel and his Tower
Had its use as a gigantic 300m high radio antenna not been
recognised in the early 1900s the magnificent Eiffel Tower, would have been
pulled down and destroyed. Under its original contract as the wrought iron
gateway to the 1889 Paris World Fair, it was only to stand for 20 years. But
its creator, engineer Gustave Eiffel, had other ideas. In the same way that
Eiffel initially convinced politicians to support this dazzling demonstration
of France’s industrial power, he persuaded them to keep it as a scientific
laboratory, leading to new knowledge of wind engineering and meteorology.
But the story of the tower, which inspired both love and
hatred in the late 1800s, is one of extremes, just like the life of its
creator. From being the most revered engineer in the world, when the tower
opened and even bore his name, Eiffel found himself mired in accusations of
corruption and was sentenced to jail.
As “La Dam de Fer”, celebrates its 130 year anniversary we
explore the highs and lows of one of the world’s most famous structures.
GUESTS
Paul Bell, Institution
of Structural Engineers History Study Group
Bertrand Lemoine,
architect, engineer and historian, and author of The
Eiffel Tower: The Three Hundred Metre Tower
Ender Ozkan, Vice President Europe, RWDI
Professor Andrew Saint,Institution of
Structural Engineers History Study Group
The post #32 The untold story of Eiffel and his Tower first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
27min
September 19, 2019 #31 Creating a National Digital Twin
Back in December 2017 the UK’s National Infrastructure
Commission set the UK a huge challenge: to create a digital model of our
national infrastructure. Known as a National Digital Twin this engineering feat
requires secure sharing of high-quality standardised data between
infrastructure owners and operators, making operations more efficient and
resilient. A new task force was set up to lead this massive digitisation programme
and in this episode its chair Mark Enzer sets out the plan for creating this amazing
interconnected system of systems and explains how it will boost infrastructure
performance, reduce risk and improve lives.
Recorded at the Bentley Twin Talks in London
Guests
Mark Enzer, chair, Digital Framework Task
Group and Chief Technical Officer, Mott
MacDonald
Miranda Sharp, Innovation Director, Ordnance
Survey
Dr Anne Kemp OBE, Chair, UK BIM Forum and Technical
Director, Atkins
Greg Bentley, Chief Executive Officer, Bentley Systems
Catriona Cantwell, Senior Project Manager, Landsec
Brian MacKay, Senior Programme Manager, Costain
Peter Vale, Engineering Information Manager, Tideway
Special thanks to guest interviewer Infrastructure Journalist
Antony Oliver
Supporter
Bentley Systems If you want to hear more from Mark Enzer he will be speaking at the Bentley Year in Infrastructure Event in Singapore from the 21st to the 24th October. Or to become part of the UK digital twin talks network contact Bentley Industry Marketing Director Mark Coates on [email protected]
The post #31 Creating a National Digital Twin first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
27min
September 05, 2019 #30 Interviewing Dad: Atkins President Philip Hoare
Chloe is 16 and interested in an engineering career. She is also the daughter of Philip Hoare, President of engineering consultant Atkins. To find out more she digs deep into her Dad’s engineering life story by interviewing him about the projects that have shaped his career. From harrowing tragedy on a bridge project to world firsts in underground construction and his love of railways, she explores how her Dad came to lead a business of 18,000 people and grills him on crucial issues facing engineering in the UK today from HS2 and digital transition to gender diversity.
But it is not just Chloe who learns something. In this
insightful interview Chloe explains how it feels to be the only girl taking A
Level Physics and makes some important suggestions for how companies like
Atkins can encourage more young women into engineering.
Interviewer: Chloe Hoare
Guest: Philip Hoare, President of Atkins
The post #30 Interviewing Dad: Atkins President Philip Hoare first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
35min
August 22, 2019 #29 Innovations in Renewable Energy: Lorna Bennet
Growing up in a tiny village in rural Scotland, regular
power cuts would leave Lorna Bennet and her family without electricity for days
on end. Determined to become self-sufficient Lorna set about learning how to
create sustainable energy, from designing water wheels to working on tidal power
arrays and testing the world’s largest offshore wind turbine blades. Becoming a
mechanical engineer has enabled Lorna to push the boundaries of renewable
energy technology but working on world firsts is not easy and has meant overcoming
challenges that come with innovation, including the collapse of the burgeoning
wave power industry. But setbacks like this have also given Lorna invaluable
experience which she uses today at the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult,
designing and testing innovations that are changing the world and helping achieve
net zero emissions by 2050.
GUEST
Lorna Bennet, mechanical engineer, ORE Catapult
IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year WES Prize Winner 2018
SUPPORTER
This episode is supported by Bricsys
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RESOURCES
Watch the world’s longest turbine blade manufactured by LM Wind Power, being transported to the ORE Catapult testing facility at Blythe here
Learn more about the Shetland Tidal Array
The post #29 Innovations in Renewable Energy: Lorna Bennet first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
37min
August 08, 2019 #28 Building for Biodiversity
Habitat for the UK’s Great Yellow Bumblebee has declined 80
percent over the last century thanks to the loss of the flower rich meadows
that sustain them. They now only persist in the North of Scotland, so when
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks planned a new substation in the
Highlands, preserving the habitat of the bumblebee was a crucial part of the
design process. For SSE this was part of a wider strategy to ensure that every
project they build has a net improvement on biodiversity. And soon all projects
in England will have to do the same as the Department for the Environment and
Rural Affairs has announced sweeping changes to new developments mandating
the requirement for biodiversity net gain on all new projects.
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 #28 Building for Biodiversity first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
24min
July 26, 2019 #27 Recycling Plastic into Roads
After 844 trial tests, and setting his own street on fire,
founder of Scottish start-up MacRebur Toby McCartney finally hit on a viable
solution for repairing potholes. His idea sought to resurface roads using recycled
plastics, and the result is a form of polymer modification of asphalt that uses
a mixture of waste plastics and additives to create an alternative to bitumen. Bitumen
is the sticky, fossil fuel derived substance that binds together the aggregates
that surface our roads, and although Toby’s new business can’t eliminate it, it
can replace a proportion of it, lowering the road’s carbon footprint and
finding a practical use for waste plastics that are polluting our planet.
According to MacRebur this could be the start of a new type
of circular economy with local councils using local plastic waste to pave their
highways. Department for Transport trials are underway to assess the long-term
performance of the new recycled plastic roads.
GUESTS
Toby McCartney, Founder and CEO, MacRebur
Gordon Reid, Operations Director, MacRebur
Dr Greg White, Director Airport Pavement Research Programme,
University of the Sunshine Coast,
Australia
The post #27 Recycling Plastic into Roads first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
18min
July 16, 2019#26 Saving Rossington
Placing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals at the heart of projects can regenerate UK communities. From a new 4km road link that saved a former mining community in Yorkshire, to a coastal replenishment scheme that brought new opportunity to Colwyn Bay in North Wales, we hear how incorporating the sustainable development goals is changing lives for the better.
Embracing the SDGs means doing things differently. It means
looking at local needs in a new way and asking what more can projects do to
enhance environment and improve opportunities for all. Crucially this must
happen now. The UK and 192 other nations have pledged to ensure that the SDGs
are met by 2030. But our first ever national review of UK progress on these
global goals shows that we have a long way to go if the UK is going to enable
all people, from all backgrounds to fulfil their potential and live rewarding
lives in a healthy environment.
This episode was produced in partnership with Mott MacDonald.
Photo credit: Rossington Parish Council
GUESTS
Nathan Baker, director of engineering knowledge, ICE
Lord John Bird, Founder, The Big Issue
John Cooke, Parish Councillor, Rossington Parish Council
Simon Dawes, Head of Sustainable Business, The Environment Agency
Neil Firth, Head of Service for Major Projects and Infrastructure, Doncaster Council
Ken Guest, Chair, Rossington Parish Council
John Huddleston, Communications & Corporate Affairs Director, Doncaster Sheffield Airport
Nigel Morley, Project Manager, Mott MacDonald
Taffy Osborne, Managing Director, Colwyn Bay Watersports
Benjamin Poulton, Project Manager, Colwyn Bay Waterfront Project, Colwyn Council
Davide Stronati, Global Sustainability Leader, Mott MacDonald
Ian Tuckett, Chief Executive, Coin Street Community Builders

SUPPORTER
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 #26 Saving Rossington first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
44min
June 27, 2019 #25 Return of the Fatbergs
Underneath cities all over the UK subterranean mountains of
calcified fat are gathering in our sewers as fat, oil and grease stick to baby
wipes and harden to form a blubbery bacterial blockage. Removing them is
dangerous, manual work, putting people and the infrastructure itself at risk.
In this episode we venture to the site of Europe’s biggest fatberg in
Blackfriars, London with Lanes Group special projects manager Andy Howard, who
explains that removing a fatberg is not necessarily the end of the story.
Unless people change their habits, fatbergs will come back. At Whitechapel, in
east London they have already witnessed the return of the fatberg.
Hear Andy describe in detail how fatbergs are hacked,
drilled and dug out as well as describe a new phenomenon plaguing the sewers –
concretebergs.
GUEST
Andy Howard, special projects manager, Lanes Group
A new report from Lanes shows that
public awareness of fatbergs is increasing with 77 percent of people knowing
what they. However 85 percent of people had never heard of concretebergs! Full
survey here.
SPECIAL THANKS
Lanes Group
Thames Water
Water UK
The post #25 Return of the Fatbergs first appeared on Engineering Matters.
...more
29min

FAQs about Engineering Matters:

How many episodes does Engineering Matters have?

The podcast currently has 400 episodes available.

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