Manchester University - High Voltage Lab

Global EMC is currently installing shielding to the new UHV laboratory at UoM.
The client required the design, manufacture and installation of a brand new, state of the art High Voltage Laboratory for research and education purposes. The new laboratory will keep the University at the cutting edge of High Voltage research. Ensuring it is one of the country’s leading academic providers in High Voltage experimentation and development.
The client approached Global EMC to provide shielding to the new facility to exclude (or sufficiently attenuate) frequencies of less than 1000 kHz (1 MHz). This would attenuate any high pd background noise level that was present in the non-shielded areas.

Global EMC provided shielding as per the Faraday Cage principle of a six sided enclosure. Due to the high voltages that would be present inside the laboratory, specialist contractors provided Earthing and Grounding and was interfaced to the shielding and a copper mesh floor.
The shielding was electrically isolated using dielectric spacers from the host building to create an electrically isolated laboratory. This created a structure within a structure concept including the large overhead crane that would be provided by others.
The isolated structure would be constantly monitored during the construction phase and would instantly alert if the shielding became in contact with the host building.
A control room would be installed to give the end user both a safe place to control the experiments whilst also providing an educational platform through a large shielded window into the laboratory.
Construction is on-going and is due to complete in 2020.

Due to the complex and bespoke nature of the laboratory a detailed and intricate design and development process was undertaken. Using AutoCAD, Solidworks and Revit a co-ordinated design approach was achieved. Regular onsite meetings with the client’s design team, other contractors and client workshops, helped progress and refine the design to construction. Workshops with specialist design consultants Haefly were also held to provide specialist knowledge and design information. During construction, Global EMC’s design team provided on-going site visits to monitor the design during the installation process.