UK-based construction firm Mace has secured a contract from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to deliver an Extreme Photonics Applications Centre (EPAC) in Oxfordshire, UK.
The construction firm was selected through the Southern Construction Framework (SCF).
The UK government has announced an investment of £81m in EPAC with the funds provided through the R&D-focused Strategic Priorities Fund.
The project will include an advanced high power and high repetition laser system. EPAC is expected to assist the researchers and industry to understand the composition of new materials and their behaviour in different conditions.
The new centre, which will be built on the Harwell campus in Oxfordshire, is a highly strategic, disruptive technology which is expected to directly help the Industrial Strategy of the UK government.
Central Laser Facility UK director Professor John Collier said: “As our construction partner in the EPAC project Mace will be contributing, alongside the work of the team of the scientists and engineers at STFC’s Central Laser Facility and our colleagues in academia, to a project that will enable the UK to realise the potential offered by laser-driven radiation sources to be genuinely disruptive and that will soon bring together the wider science community in a diverse programme of fundamental and applied research.”
Mace will work with the STFC, designers, a global concrete specialist as well as with the supply chain partners to deliver the complete project long with the experimental areas of the centre at the place where high-intensity lasers will be tested.
The UK construction firm was selected by the STFC after the delivery of National Satellite Test Facility and the Rosalind Franklin Institute projects.
Mace public sector construction managing director Terry Spraggett said: “The Extreme Photonics Application Centre is a technically complex and challenging project, and we will use our experience in delivering cutting edge research facilities to realise the client’s vision.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Image: Rendering of Extreme Photonics Applications Centre on the Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire. (Credit: Mace Group.)
