A new £24 million Advanced Manufacturing Building (AMB) at the University of Nottingham has been equipped with overhead lifting equipment supplied by Street Crane (www.streetcrane.com).

With a lifting capacity of 10 tonnes and a span of 20m, the crane is mounted on 37m-long rails, allowing it to deliver heavy equipment to any part of the AMB’s 700m² laboratory.

It is being used to lift and re-position research equipment and apparatus that is being developed and tested at the new centre.

The AMB (www.nottingham.ac.uk) incorporates purpose-built teaching spaces, specialist research laboratories and a clean room for the research and development of 3-D printed pharmaceutical devices.

It is also the home of the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing (IfAM), which brings together under one roof the research activities of the university’s advanced manufacturing, additive manufacturing and polymer composites
research groups, with over 200 academics, researchers and PhD students.

IfAM director Svetan Ratchev, who is based in the new building, said: “The AMB allows us to continue expanding our research portfolio and provides a unique environment for the university to work with manufacturers of all sizes to deliver world-class research and transfer the created knowledge into high-impact future industrial technologies.”

The new facility will support start-ups, as well as existing businesses such as GSK, BAE Systems and JLR.

It is currently working on a new range of robot mechanics that could transform Rolls-Royce’s jet engine maintenance operations, while reducing costs for airline operators.