Woods Air Movement is involved in “the design, test, certification and manufacture of industrial and life safety applications”. They have a wide range of connections across the globe including offices in the USA, Germany, and India. Students from Colchester Royal Grammar School visited the company’s Head Quarters and factory in Colchester to learn more about the engineering workflow in the real world and about the people who work in engineering.
The Head of Engineering talked about the history of the company and important projects they have worked on in the past, including a fan for a wind tunnel for Mercedes to test their F1 car, and fans for underground tunnels currently being built in Sydney, Australia. The factory is the main area where all the parts of the fans were assembled by workers.
The students were shown the main testing room where larger fans are tested for airflow, static pressure, dynamic pressure, and vibrations.
Stephen, Product Design A level student who attended the trip, commented, "They also have an anechoic chamber where they test the noise levels of the fans using mics placed all around the fan. Standing in this room covered all over with spikes of sponge was surreal. Unsurprisingly we didn’t go into high temperature testing room which can test fans in up to 400°C heat!
"We enjoyed the trip and learnt a lot about the real-world applications in engineering."
