Consultancy and testing
Bristol Earthquake and Engineering Laboratory Ltd (BEELAB)
Bristol Earthquake and Engineering Laboratory Limited ("BEELAB") is a commercial company, owned by the University, established to promote collaboration with industry and generate income to support further research. The success of the research philosophy is evident from the many consultancy contracts from eminent engineering firms, both in the UK and overseas.
BEELAB can offer the advanced technical skills and resources to solve complex problems in earthquake engineering and structural dynamics. These have included the analysis of:
- major dams (e.g. the Victoria Dam in Sri Lanka)
- major bridges (e.g. the 3km Straits of Messina suspension bridge)
- nuclear installations
- hospital complexes
- large chimneys.
Seismic qualification tests on mechanical equipment are carried out in the laboratory, whilst dynamic measurements (impact analysis and insitu monitoring) on full scale structures are undertaken as part of integrity and safety assessments.
For more information or to request a quotation for work please contact Dr Adam Crewe.
Areas of expertise
- Seismic qualification testing to standards including IEEE 344 and the Bellcore specifications
- Earthquake engineering
- Structural dynamics
- Seismic analysis
- Dynamic testing
- Prototype monitoring
- Finite element analysis
- Integrity monitoring
- Foundation-structure interaction
- Fluid-structure interaction
- Asynchronous motion
- Stochastic analysis
- Dams
- Bridges
- Buildings
- Offshore structures
Facilities
- EPSRC shaking table
- Signal processing and modal analysis software
- Hammer testing
- Single and multi-point vibrators
- Prototype monitoring equipment
- Vision-based displacement measurements
- Silicon graphics mainframe
- Sun workstations
- ANSYS, SOLVIA, SAP, FLUSH and in-house packages
Administration and Quality Assurance
BEELAB is administratively independent of the University. It operates a professional Quality Assurance system which complies with the British Standards ISO 9001 (formally BS5750) and BS5882 and has been approved by British Nuclear Fuels Plc, Nuclear Electric Ltd and the Property Services Agency. The Quality Assurance procedures have also been expanded to cover all of the group’s activities, including PhD research projects.