PET MRI – Scanner Installation

On Sunday 2nd February we were on site at PET MRI to oversee the delivery and installation of the PET MRI scanner. The scanner is a £4.5m worth piece of kit and weighed 8.7 tonnes to lift.

To enable these works to happen, a road closure for the whole weekend was applied for through the Council. A readiness check was undertaken on the Thursday before to ensure the building was acceptable and this had been 4-5 weeks in planning. The scaffolding was erected on Saturday 1st February and as it projects onto the road we needed the two day closure.

At 7am the crane team arrived on site and got set up and in place in time for the scanner to arrive at around 9am. Once the scanner was on site, the hole was opened in the building on the first floor. Although the teams were not our contractors and not employed by Kier, they were on our site, so controls had to be in place for this. The lift of the scanner was a slow and very controlled process and took around 1 hour to complete. Once the scanner was lifted onto the scaffold platform, the task began to move it into its exact place within the room, which is calculated by engineers.

Once in place, the magnet needed to be connected to a power source straight away due to the liquid helium in the machine which keeps the magnet under control. If we have lost power, it would have cost circa £30k to get it up and running again. In order to protect the scanner while the external blockwork is built, a temporary screen had to be erected in the opening. If there was any water ingress into the cage, then the room would no longer work. This screen will also protect the copper cage from damage while the external block and brick is completed to the opening, whilst also allowing GE Healthcare to complete the internal finishes to the room, which both have to be completed by the contract handover date of mid-February.

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