Facilities and Equipment

The Department of Engineering features a number of dedicated teaching laboratories including the newly refurbished Electrical laboratory. Students use these facilities to gain practical experience to complement theory learned in lectures.

Examples of our advanced facilities are shown below. More information about our research facilites can be found in each of the Research Challenge Groups. 

Wind tunnel

Durham’s largest wind tunnel features a pioneering active turbulence generator system that allows gusts of wind to be created on demand to evaluate the performance of vehicles, as well as wind turbines, in real-world conditions.

Clean rooms

Clean rooms are hi-tech facilities that enable students to conduct experiments in very controlled environments. Our state-of-the-art laboratories allow users to build and measure very small devices in an environment free of contamination such as dust particles. We have 200m² of class 1000 cleanroom space, with advanced processing and inspection equipment available for our students and staff. In addition, we offer micro- and nano-fabrication and device inspection services to external clients and other Universities.

Geotechnical engineering laboratory facilities

The Department’s geotechnical engineering laboratory is a fully equipped facility specialising in unsaturated soil mechanics and large scale soils testing. It has temperature and humidity controlled zones to provide a stable environment for sensitive experiments and is supported by experienced technical staff and an engineering workshop for bespoke testing applications. Research conducted in the geotechnical engineering laboratory is complemented by other facilities including our X-ray Computed Tomography facility.

Investment and renovation

Our £4.3 million investment has significantly increased the computing resources available for our students, providing large memory and high-end processor machines for computationally demanding projects at undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral levels.