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.