What we did on our dream placement

On Monday 12th February, A design engineer named Max set us with an engineering related problem; involving I-beams that would have to be placed on site to support Sellafield Ltd (SL) in the transportation of a crane into a cell. The cell and crane had certain conditions that we had to work around, such as the crane weighing 26 tonnes, having wheels 5m apart, having a Factor of safety of 4 or above, and the cell itself being unchangeable due to how thick the material is. We then had to work out using the stress and strain formulae, what beam would be ideal for use on site to carry the rails. We had to decide what size beam should be used, along with what schedule (S255 or S355). Once we had decided on a specific type of beam, we then had to work out the beam's factor of safety and see if it matched the requirements given in the task.

Using multiple calculations we came to the conclusion that an S355 I-beam with the schedule "1016 x 305 x 222" would be the best choice of material as the maximum possible amount of bending lies within the beam's capabilities. Now that the beam had been chosen, we then had to write up a cost analysis of the project, including the cost of hiring labourers and scaffold/winches/etc. A Gantt chart was then created to determine an approximate timescale of how long the project would take to complete.

A full report of the task can be seen below: