AEMT members were able to gain an exclusive audience with the Principal M&E Engineer for the Falkirk wheel then taken
on a tour of the wheel's engine and maintenance rooms.
AEMT Visits
The Scottish Canal’s
Falkirk Wheel
or the Scotland meeting this
year, AEMT members were
able to gain an exclusive
audience with the Principal
M&E Engineer for the Falkirk
wheel. After being guided through the
more technical aspects of the engineering
behind the wheel and the connected
canals, members were taken on a tour
of the wheel's engine and maintenance
rooms.
F
Steven Berry B.Sc MIET is a contented, and
enthusiastic person, whose passion for
engineering is infectious. His occupation
takes him up and down the Scottish
canals, looking after the mechanical and
electrical aspects – in particular the Falkirk
Wheel, Kelpies, and Helix Park. Much of the
work includes power and control systems,
mechanical and hydraulic upgrades, and
energy saving equipment.
It's clear that he takes great pride in the
work he does for Scottish canals. With the
Falkirk Wheel being the central aspect
of an £85 million re-investment in the
Scotland's inland waterways – he has
quite a lot to be proud of. The canals are
dominantly a tourist attraction these days,
a far cry from the toil they received at the
80
PECM Issue 28
turn of the century. With around 400,000
visitors a year, it brings a crowd – and
what a brilliant location to show off the
engineering capabilities of Great Britain.
T he W heel
Opened in 2002 as part of the Millennium
Link, a project that restored Scotland's
inland waterways to a navigable state for
the first time since the 1960s The Wheel
replaced a flight of 11 locks that once
stepped the Union Canal down to the level
of the Forth & Clyde over a distance of 1.5
kilometres and took more than a day to
traverse. The Falkirk Wheel allows vessels
to transit between the two waterways in
just a few minutes.
While touring around the wheel in
hard-hats and high-vis, members were
approached by a keen member of the
public, who presumably thought that
we were the most reliable source for
information on the wheel. In order to
settle a wager with his partner he asked
us to clarify the reason for the wheel's
unique design. Steven proudly deferred
the question to us, after briefing us
beforehand on the subject.
The unusual design of The Falkirk Wheel
has been described using Scottish and
marine architectural terms including a
Celtic inspired double-headed axe, the
spine of a fish, ribcage of a whale and the
vast turning propellers of a Clydebank-
built ship, so to answer the man's question
- aesthetics. Unfortunately, this was not
the answer he was looking for – like most
people he was sure there was some sort
of an aerodynamic/engineering answer to
the wings and he turned about with the
skip from his step slightly down trodden.
A rchimedes P rincipal
If a 200-tonne vessel approached the
Wheel, glided onto a gondola and waited
a few minutes for the wheel to effortlessly
lift the 500 tonne gondola and vessel 35
metres, using only 1.5kw/h, you might
question the principals behind the
structure.
It took a combined effort between the
British Waterways Board, and engineering
consultants Arup, Butterley Engineering
and RMJM to come up with the final
design. The solution: when one of the
structure's gondolas is lowered, the
opposite one rises, keeping the vast 1800