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Laser blocking screens in use at Imperial College

Imperial College London is using laser safety systems and equipment from Lasermet to enable safe research and versatility.

Lasermet manufactured to specification, supplied and installed a laser safety package that included laser blocking curtains, (both motorised and manual), laser enclosures, flat foot laser blocking screens and encapsulated laser blocking roller blinds. These are now all installed in the recently refurbished Thermofluids Division of the Mechanical Engineering Department located at South Kensington.

The flatfoot screens installed are made from laser blocking material that is certified to withstand high powered laser beams in accordance with the relevant screen specification. As the name implies, the screens are kept upright using their flat feet. The screens are easily set up and can be moved within the lab environment to enable the relocation of test subject equipment such as engines and monitoring equipment.

Two large laser enclosures have been installed on site enabling high powered lasers to be used within the structures.

The surrounding enclosure installed by Lasermet comprises of three laser blocking walls each 3m high. (The fourth wall is an existing structure). The space within one of the enclosures is divided into six rooms using Lasermet’s 2m tall flatfoot laser blocking screens. Each of these rooms can be used to run equipment using lasers being separate from the neighbouring room. The sketch below shows a typical general arrangement demonstrating the versatility of using the screens within the enclosure. It shows the concept only and is not to scale.

The second enclosure uses Lasermet’s laser blocking curtains to divide the enclosure into four quarters. Each curtain can be drawn back to produce one large room within the enclosure or, alternatively, each curtain can be drawn to the centre and zipped to the adjacent curtain. When two curtains are joined a new internal room is subsequently formed. If all four curtains are drawn to the centre then four separate rooms can be formed.

Lasermet installed motorised and non-motorised versions of the curtains to maximise ease of use. Lasermet provided the laser blocking curtains to prevent any stray laser beam from reaching the windows of the building above the wall line of the laser enclosure. The college made use of the option to have motorised curtains enabling the easy drawing or opening of these curtains. Standard manual curtains were also installed.

To complete the installation Lasermet provided encapsulated laser blocking roller blinds to enable the facility to be fully flexible. These blinds, fitted to cover smaller windows and door apertures in either motorised or manual versions, are made from the same Lasermet laser-blocking material as the curtains and are made-to-measure to fit any size of window. They are available as standard or encapsulated options. The roller blind is built into a white finish aluminium frame, which encapsulates the top, both edges and bottom of the blind. This eliminates any possibility of laser beams passing round the sides of the blind, blocks out all light and gives a much neater finish.

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