Defense Infrastructure Organization News

The U.K. Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has arrived in Glen Mallan, Scotland, as part of final preparations before her first operational deployment set to commence later this year.Sailing in along the Firth of Clyde, the 65,000-tonne warship has spent the last two weeks at sea testing and trialing her latest equipment, before berthing at the new Northern Ammunition Jetty for a routine onload of operational stores.HMS Queen Elizabeth is the first of the Royal Navy’s fleet to visit the new £64 million facility, built by the Defense Infrastructure Organization (DIO).

The world of dredging is an ever changing and endlessly fascinating niche of the global marine industry, an indispensable activity essential to keeping world commerce flowing. For insight on recent trends we visited last month with René Kolman, Secretary General, International Association of Dredging Companies (IADC), for his take on a world of dredging challenges and opportunities. In true Dutch fashion René Kolman is refreshingly forthright. Kolman assumed the mantle of leadership at IADC more than seven years ago, coming to the post from the landscape and garden trade association business.

GE announce its partnership with VolkerStevin Ltd. to provide technical solutions to the Defense Infrastructure Organization (DIO) for the Royal Navy. Through this partnership, GE is set to design, manufacture and commission a Rotary Frequency Converter (RFC) which enables efficient, safe and reliable power transfer from the national grid to HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers, based at Portsmouth Naval Base, UK. The electricity from the U.K. national grid, which operates at a frequency of 50Hz, will be converted by the RFC into 60Hz for use by the equipment on-board the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier. This allows for the ship’s diesel generators to be switched off while at berth in Portsmouth Naval Base, reducing noise, pollution and costs.

BMT Isis Ltd., a subsidiary of BMT Group Ltd., has announced the completion of its latest project to validate BMT’s design for the Portsmouth Approach Channel, a design conceived to ensure that the Royal Navy’s new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, can transit safely into and out of their home base at HMNB Portsmouth. Having developed the design for Defense Infrastructure Organization (DIO) six years ago, as well as completing initial validation work using desk-top simulation and peer review…