New floor for National Composites Centre machine

The University of Bristol’s National Composites Centre forms part of Bristol and Bath Science Park, a hub which facilitates engineering research and development. The building enables the use of composite fibres to create lightweight and robust components, a new technology which is extremely precise and requires rigorous and exact structural engineering to mitigate machinery deterioration.

Bristol structural engineer Patrick Barton, who is designing a new floor for the building's Automated Fibre Placement / Automated Tape Laying (AFP/ATL) machine, which is an extremely sensitive composite manufacturing machinery that requires stability to ensure accuracy, said: “It is almost impossible to make a floor that does not move; the ground beneath us is constantly moving, swelling with moisture or drying out. However, sometimes we have to try and create a stillness that betrays nature’s movement. For the AFP/ATL machine, we have had to design a floor that can take 25 tonnes of weight, without moving more than 0.125mm. It has been an interesting challenge.”

The solution is a super strong floating slab floor which is 1m deep and completely unconnected to the rest of the building. The concrete slab has 40mm reinforcing rods and has an intelligent concrete mix, utilising cement replacement and cooling technology when the concrete is poured.

We were the engineers for the original building and have delivered other complicated interventions for this project, including its 45m roof, upgrades to the mezzanine office floor, a floating, sealed, escape staircase and foundations for the Composite Braider. We are also working on new extensions that will facilitate future demands.