Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

A recent presentation given by the Croydon Cable Tunnel Team should hopefully give students from the Trinity School in Croydon a good idea of how much fun tunnelling can be. The team were hoping to encourage more students to consider a career in tunnelling engineering and the presentation was designed to show the fifth and sixth form students just how varied and interesting careers in tunnelling are.

The team used the opportunity to discuss the intricacies of tunnelling and the National Grid. The £80 million Croydon Cable Tunnel project involves construction of a 10km tunnel beneath the city of London in order to maintain a safe and reliable electricity infrastructure for the future. During the interactive and educational presentation, the group of thirty students had the opportunity to see the cutting teeth of a Tunnel Boring Machine as part of the illustration of how a TBM works underground. They also had a chance to ask lots of questions from the members of the team.

It is hoped that such a presentation will help to fuel some student interest in engineering careers, particularly those involving tunnelling. The National Grid Project Manager, Scott Sadler, was present at the careers talk and he was keen to point out the tremendous variety a career in engineering can offer, as not only can engineers working for the National Grid expect to work up pylons, they might also end up working in control rooms or deep underground, such as in the Croydon Cable Tunnel.

The National Grid Croydon Cable Tunnel project began last year and the major tunnelling portion of the job is now complete. The cabling section should be finished by spring 2011 after which testing of the new electricity infrastructure will commence.