THE BRIEF

The brief called for the construction, supply and installation of all services required for the development of a new altitude testing facility for a car manufacturing plant. This was a highly technical M&E project requiring large air movement at marginal tolerances. The test cell was effectively recreating moving vehicle conditions of up to 120 km/h.

We delivered this project working within the secure R&D centre and liaising with the client to achieve minimal shutdown periods when connecting to site infrastructure, whilst maintaining the manufacturing standard of two points of isolation on any service.

OUR APPROACH

This was the inaugural installation of a testing facility for car manufacturing in Europe and a priority project for our client. To ensure that everything proceeded smoothly, we carried out workshop meetings with the client team to garner the full specialist understanding of what the requirements for the test facility were.

As a key car manufacturing R&D facility with development of commercially sensitive products, security was strict and so we planned ahead for isolations and achieved working permits well ahead of the works to be undertaken.

KEY CHALLENGES

The project had a number of challenges throughout its lifecycle to achieve success. Before work could begin on the new facility, there was the need for the demolition of the existing installation and excavation required to enable the installation of a new concrete basement to house the rolling road.

Above ground, there was a requirement for the installation of a new steelwork platform/deck to hold HVAC plant which needed to be capable of moving 30m3/s. A BeMS system able to control and monitor the HVAC system was also installed.

As part of the considerations for the construction of the facility, acoustic walls to reduce noise to the control room and surrounding site area and LED lighting and small power commando sockets for local equipment were required.