In today’s post, we look at the free webinar that has been organized to provide timely information to assist construction businesses in navigating the UKCA. The historic Greenholme Mills in Wharfedale are being renovated to become luxury apartments. Other stories that need our attention are the finding of dark matter and the development of high-speed rail in Europe.

Free webinar helps building makers navigate UKCA

Original Source: Navigating UKCA: Free webinar provides urgent advice for construction manufacturers

UK and European construction manufacturers can join a free webinar to learn about UKCA marking and market access in 2023.

Recent adjustments to facilitate the transition to UKCA marking have given manufacturers more possibilities. Door and window, façade, and glazing makers must meet new UKCA marking criteria by 1 January 2023.

What’s the webinar about?

The webinar will cover possible routes to market (both for European companies selling into the UK and vice versa), the timescales for UKCA marking, and how testing and certification requirements are changing for all relevant construction products, especially those products and building systems within the European Commission’s AVCP System 1 and System 3, and special cases covering fenestration and curtain walling systems and internal fire doors.

The webinar will also provide advance notification about UL’s forthcoming testing facilities in Blockley, Gloucestershire. The new lab will help UK and European industries with certification and testing capabilities.

Prepare construction companies for UKCA amendments.

UL International (UK) and ift Rosenheim are hosting a webinar to help companies prepare for these changes in six months.

Both companies collaborate on U.K. and European product conformity marking, fire safety testing, and third-party certification. Prof. Jörn P. Lass and Roland Fischer from ift Rosenheim, and Chris Miles and Mark Swanborough from UL will speak.

Burley-in-historic Wharfedale’s Greenholme Mills restored for luxury living

Original Source: Historic Greenholme Mills in Burley-in-Wharfedale brought back to life for luxury living

A Victorian mill on the River Wharfe is being rebuilt into apartments.

MMR Construction refurbished the 200-year-old Greenholme Mills in Burley-in-Wharfedale into luxurious one-, two-, and three-bedroom flats.

As the first phase of the renovation nears completion, Otley’s Parkes & Co renting agencies will advertise the units for rent.

The development “will provide the greatest degree of luxury living, benefiting from its spectacular position on the outskirts of Burley-in-Wharfedale hamlet”

“The entry lobby is a spectacle to see in itself with chandeliers, a marble feature wall, and a glass elevator leading to the secured undercroft parking lot below,” they say.

“Luxury bathrooms and en-suites with heated flooring and double showers accompany big bedrooms with breathtaking views and neutral modern décor. Each unit offers its own balcony with breathtaking views.

MMR Construction is a Homes England and LABC Building Excellence Award-winning developer.

The developer has retained as many historic elements as possible, including the subterranean Goyt, which will become a private gym. An existing structure to the north of the property, designated the ‘Fison’ Building, will house a café with a big, raised terrace overlooking the river and modest workshop spaces.

Jonas Whitaker & Company built the initial Greenholme Mill on the River Wharfe in 1790. In 1810, when Whitaker and Forster were built, Greenholme was one of the greatest water-powered mills in the UK.

William Fisons & Company converted the mills to worsted spinning and weaving in 1850. After the West Riding’s worsted trade declined in 1968, Fisons’ closed and sold its assets.

Dark matter detector created

Original Source: Sensitive dark matter detector comes to life

LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Experiment (LZ), situated at Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, US, has obtained its first result — demonstrating the experiment is running as intended.

The University of Bristol’s School of Physics is among the worldwide partners sponsoring the project.

The experiment requires 1,000 days to be sensitive enough. This first outcome represents a fraction of the exposure, validating a decade of planning and building.

LZ is aimed to detect direct evidence of dark matter, an unseen material believed to compose up most of the Universe’s mass.

Dark matter is hard to detect because it emits no light or other radiation.

LZ will strive to record uncommon and feeble dark matter interactions with its 7-ton liquid xenon target. LZ must be thoroughly calibrated and background noise reduced to notice these interactions.

Today, the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) reported the detector is working as planned following years of meticulous setup.

Professor Henrique Arajo is the UK lead and co-lead for the LZ Xenon Detector. He remarked, “An experiment of LZ’s magnitude and sensitivity is unforgiving: the least design fault might destroy the entire project.” Since the LZ cryostat can’t be opened underground, we had to do it perfectly the first time, much like launching it into space. “Looks like we did OK.”

According to an article released today on the experiment’s website, LZ is already the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector.

After a good start, full-scale observations may commence in search of dark matter evidence.

LZ has 250 scientists and engineers from 35 US, UK, Portugal, and South Korean organisations. More than 50 individuals from Bristol, Edinburgh, Imperial, Liverpool, Oxford, Royal Holloway, Sheffield, UCL, and STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory make up the STFC-funded UK team.

Many UK groups come from ZEPLIN, which created liquid xenon technology for dark matter studies at STFC’s Boulby Underground Laboratory. UK ZEPLIN groups joined the LUX project in 2012 and began developing LZ about then.

Prof. Arajo commented, “It’s been a delight to collaborate on such a creative and exciting project.” The pioneering ZEPLIN programme goes on as the ‘Z’ in ‘LZ,’ but we required a bigger worldwide team to attain this size.

UK deliveries to LZ comprised the ultralow background titanium cryostat, numerous contributions to the core Xenon Detector, two calibration sub-systems, and one of the two international Data Centers.

Many of the radioassays required to determine the best materials were undertaken in the UK (at STFC’s Boulby Underground Laboratory and UCL).

LZ Spokesperson Hugh Lippincott from UC Santa Barbara agrees with Arajo: “Working over huge distances is difficult, particularly during Covid when we couldn’t assemble in person. We had too many Zoom calls, but it was fantastic to see how effectively individuals could work together, sending work across the globe each morning and evening.”

Researchers from the University of Bristol LZ group contributed to the experiment’s software architecture and to the design and commissioning of the LZ Outer Detector. Bristol PhD student Sam Eriksen worked underground at SURF in 2020 during the height of the epidemic.

The researchers also optimized the Outer Detector veto to minimize background processes that may appear like dark matter interactions in the detector.

Professor Henning Flaecher, PI of the Bristol group, said, “This is a terrific first outcome for LZ and it’s a joy to see years of labor come to fruition.” We look forward to analyzing LZ’s data in the future years and expect great outcomes.

LZ is the biggest and most sensitive experiment looking for dark matter particles, especially WEIMPs (WIMPs).

Theorized basic particles interact with gravity — how we know dark matter exists – and maybe a new weak interaction.

WIMPs should collide with conventional matter, but seldom and softly. This is why WIMP detectors must be silent and sensitive.

In the centre of the experiment is a massive liquid xenon particle detector kept at -100oC. If a WIMP interacts with a xenon atom and creates light, the sensors will pick it up.

But to witness these unusual interactions, the scientists had to eliminate all natural background radiation from the detector materials.

This is why LZ operates a mile below. This shelters it from cosmic radiation that hit earth’s surface. The detector and its cryostat are protected by a large water tank from lab particles and radiation.

Finally, the scientists made sure the liquid xenon is as clean as possible by eliminating a crucial impurity over years.

LZ required several complicated systems to function in unison, and these findings suggest they are.

Dark Matter Group Leader Pawel Majewski commented, “It’s satisfying to see the LZ experiment give its first scientific findings.” It’s been a delight for Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, one of the LZ’s founding members, to be part of this global effort. We expect more interesting findings and a huge discovery in the future.

Here are Europe’s high-speed rail routes

Original Source: These are all the high-speed train lines you need to know about in Europe

Rail reform has been on the EU’s agenda for a time, but progress has been sluggish.

As air travel and carbon emissions grow, the bloc must invest in railroads.

Aviation accounted for 3.8% of total EU CO2 emissions in 2017. The aviation industry is the second-largest source of transport GHG emissions after road transport, at 13.9%. But can high-speed rail replace airlines in Europe?

This was the vision of rail industry executives in Lyon, France, on 29 June, when plans to quadruple high-speed train usage by 2030 were disclosed.

The first high-speed rail (HSR) lines on the continent were constructed in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. How many high-speed rail projects exist in Europe and are more planned?

European high-speed railroads

France

France’s TGV high-speed rail network is efficient across Europe. SNCF’s service transports 110 million people annually.

The TGV system extends to Italy, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany, or by TGV-derivative networks connecting France to Switzerland (Lyria), Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands (Thalys), and the United Kingdom (Eurostar).

The network goes to CDG and Disneyland Paris.

Extensions inside France and to neighboring nations are planned.

LGV Méditerranée, part of TGV, links to the south of France. LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse should be done by 2030, LGV Bordeaux-Espagne by 2032, and LGV Montpellier-Perpignan by 2035.

UK

HS1 is Britain’s sole high-speed rail railway, connecting London to the Channel Tunnel and France. Eurostar operates on HS1. High-speed Kent-to-London commuter trains utilize the same line.

HS1 carries 11 million international and 15 million local travelers annually. The railway is 108 km long and trains exceed 225 km/h.

HS2 is being built between London and Birmingham, with expansions to Manchester and Nottingham. It will connect London to the North, Midlands, and Scotland and minimize travel times.

London-Birmingham is planned to open in 2026. The new timeline is 2029-2033. The second phase was supposed to open in 2032-33, but it’s now 2035-2040.

Germany

ICE (InterCity Express) links Germany’s biggest cities. It’s one of the quickest methods to get between Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne.

Trains run up to 305 km/h in Austria and Switzerland. The 25-km Stuttgart–Wendlingen high-speed train should be finished by 2025. Germany’s ICE network has been criticized for delayed trains. Some say the 1991-built rails aren’t high-speed. Many rails only allow 200 km/h for current ICE trains.

Italy

Italy’s FrecciaRossa high-speed trains can reach 300 km/h. Trenitalia’s trains go directly into the heart of Italy’s most major cities, from Milan to Bologna, Florence to Rome, and Naples to Turin, cutting commuters’ trips. Frecciarossa is the most modern train, while Italo EVO is quicker.

The EVO is a “green” train made with recyclable components to decrease CO2 emissions. Milan-Genoa should be done by 2023, and Naples-Bari by 2027.

Spain

AVE is Spain’s high-speed train. The 350 k/h bullet trains link with France and Portugal.

The Madrid–Seville AVE line began in 1992. Since then, 10 lines have opened, including the 621-km Madrid–Barcelona route.

This is Europe’s longest and the second-longest in the world after China’s.

By December 2021, the network was 3,622 km long, the longest in Europe and the second largest in the world behind China’s.

More lines are incomplete. L.A.V. Murcia–Almera and Madrid–Santander will be finished by 2025.

A new cross-border railway will connect Paris and Berlin by 2023.

French rail operator SNCF and Deutsche Bahn aim to build a direct high-speed train between Paris and Berlin towards the end of 2023.

The new train line was revealed by the leader of the French firm, who traveled to Strasbourg to mark 15 years of Franco-German high-speed collaboration.

“We plan to establish a TGV Paris-Berlin in December 2023,” SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou told AFP.

“It makes sense since people are embracing lengthier travels. There are those prepared to spend five, six, or seven hours on a train, “he added.

“In this example, Paris-Berlin is seven hours.”

“A few years ago, we believed it was too lengthy and were scared no one would come. More and more people don’t mind, so that’s great!” he remarked, adding that “riding the train is a means to balance mobility with nature conservation.””

How many trains will travel between Paris and Berlin?

There will be one return journey every day through Frankfurt. It will be operated by the SNCF and Deutsche Bahn using German ICE high-speed trains, according to Alain Krakovitch, director of TGV-Intercités at the SNCF.

In the future, a second daily round journey might be performed using French TGVs (high-speed trains).

“It’s emblematic of the progress of our culture and the fact that many of our residents prefer the train,” remarked the manager.

Day and night trains between Paris and Berlin

The Paris-Berlin daytime high-speed rail will be in addition to a night train link. It will be operated by Austrian Railways BB in partnership with SNCF and Deutsche Bahn from late 2023.

“Night and day trains will run at the same time.” We’ll choose according to taste. ” Jean-Pierre Farandou remarked

“We’re building Europe someplace, the Europe of daily life,” he continued. We’re building peace in Europe with the railway.

“I’m confident we need additional railways in Europe, and a strong Europe requires a strong rail link,” said Richard Lutz of Deutsche Bahn.

He said the growth of railroads is “important to accomplish climate goals.”

A summary of today’s construction news

Overall, in this post, we look at how the free webinar helps guide organizations through the criteria of UKCA (United Kingdom Conformity Assessment) marking and access to markets in 2023. They have asked the UK and European construction makers to attend the mentioned webinar to prepare for UKCA amendments that will take effect in six months’ time. The 200-year-old Greenholme Mills on the outskirts of Burley-in-Wharfedale have been refurbished by MMR Construction and changed into a blend of luxury one, two, and three-bedroom flats that were due to go on the rental market. The invention of the Dark Matter detector and the Dark Matter Group Leader, Pawel Majewski, said: “It is great to see the LZ experiment producing its first scientific findings.” One of the scientists in this experiment also feels blessed to be amongst the fantastic initiatives bringing together all the scientists and engineers all across the globe. We also learn about the high-speed train lines in Europe that are establishing peace with railroads, according to Jean-Pierre Farandou.