OETG address

Facilities

All groups within POL Technology share the same laboratory, workshop and storage facilities. All members of the Ocean Engineering and Technology Group (OETG) and the Tide gauge Inspectorate (TGI) have administrative tasks to perform and are provided with desks and computing facilities in dedicated office accommodation. Most desks are in the Joseph Proudman Building, but a few are in the Kempston Street Annexe. All computers have access either to the central network or to a separate network dedicated to technical activities: some technical activities are incompatible with the main computing network. Technical work takes place on three sites:

Joseph Proudman Building (JPB)

The OETG and the TGI have a large, modern and fully-equipped electronics laboratory in the JPB. Alongside, there is a light mechanical workshop: tooling includes a CNC mill dedicated to prototype production of printed circuit boards. Also alongside, there is a sedimentation laboratory with tank and settlement-tower facilities for wet-testing of equipment and the calibration of sedimentation-instrumentation.

The main electronics laboratory (see picture 1) is used for the development and small-scale manufacture of cutting-edge instrumentation to collect data from the coasts and oceans of the world. Communication-techniques and equipment are also developed to transmit the data collected by instruments to POL and to other national and international agencies. Communications are conducted by land-line telephone, mobile phone, satellite-phone, direct satellite connections, VHF links and via underwater modems.

Kempston Street Annexe (KSA)

The KSA was converted from a toy-warehouse to a dedicated instrument manufacture and preparation laboratory (see picture 2). It has a workshop manned by skilled technicians who have office facilities alongside. The workshop is equipped with lathes, mills, drills, saws, guillotines and forming-tools. Computer Numerical-Controlled (CNC) machines will be procured over the next couple of years to increase productivity and to broaden the range of work which can be performed. Work is currently performed to the highest standard and very close tolerances to protect delicate instruments from the effects of pressure and salt water. The workshop has lifting equipment (fork-lift, a lifting-beam and scissors-platforms) for prototype-assembly and moving heavy components.

The KSA also contains a number of laboratories used for the preparation of instruments for deployment anywhere in the world, and storage for components which are "between" deployments. Data are downloaded from instruments which are then cleaned and serviced with new batteries and data-recording media, ready for the next deployment.

The Vittoria Dock store, in Birkenhead Docks

The Vittoria Dock (see picture 3) store is a dockside warehouse and secure yard which are leased from the owners of the Mersey Docks system. It houses POL's marine components facility, storing surface and sub-surface buoys, instrument-frames (most of which are sea-bed landers), ropes, chains and anchors, etc. POL deploys and recovers roughly fifty landers and buoyed moorings every year, and the frames and moorings are all prepared and repaired at the Vittoria Dock facility. Research vessels come into the dock up to about five times a year and are loaded and unloaded directly from the store using a local stevedoring firm. Large instruments, such as MYRTLE and STABLE III are assembled and kept in the store: diving equipment and the POL boats are also kept and serviced there. TGI tide-gauge hardware is often large and heavy (clamps and steelwork for mounting gauges on to piers and harbour-walls, etc.) and is frequently assembled and prepared at Vittoria Dock.

Picture 1 - The Electronic Development Laboratory at the JPB.	Picture 2 - Part of the Mechanical Workshop at the KSA. A range of machine-tools is retained to allow a wide range of work to be carried out. Some of the older machines will be replaced shortly when CNC machines are brought in and fitted. This development will allow work to be carried out which is currently not possible
Picture 3 - Inside the Vittoria Dock Store.