Hire of Wind Tunnel for dermal aerosol protection assessments

Concepts

• wind tunnel
• salisbury
• research services
• support staff
• hire of wind tunnel
• dermal aerosol protection assessments
• adjacent laboratory

Location

Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire:

Description

Hire of wind tunnel and adjacent laboratory with support staff to operate wind tunnel and perform chemical analysis

Award Detail

Award Criteria

CPV Codes

• 73110000 - Research services

Legal Justification

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory on behalf of The Secretary of state for Defence intends to procure the services of Silsoe Spray Applications Unit (SSAU), to hire a wind tunnel and adjacent laboratory to perform chemical analysis on the dissemination of aerosols. It is considered that the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service (as required by the relevant legislation) is lawful in accordance with regulation 32(b)(ii) of the PCR 2015 because competition is absent for technical reasons as outlined below: The tests Dstl conduct involve the dissemination of aerosols within a wind tunnel. The wind tunnel must be large enough to house the test mannequins (at the very least 2.5m wide and 2m high, ideally at least 3 m x 2.5 m) with a long enough working area to allow dissemination far enough from the mannequin to allow mixing (>10 m floor length). However, it must not be so large that we cannot generate the aerosols at high enough concentrations within an acceptable time frame (<300 m3). The concentration requirements also dictate that it must be a recirculating wind tunnel. It must have large enough level access to allow the mannequins to be placed in the wind tunnel (2 m high) and be capable of the air speeds of interest (wind tunnels designed for aerodynamic studies will typically operate at higher wind speeds than we conduct testing at). Overseas facilities are not suitable as their use would involve substantial additional difficulty and expense due to the overseas transport of up to two mechanical mannequins plus approximately 30 crates of other required equipment (on top of additional staff costs and environmental impact). In addition to this many of the test items are classified Official-Sensitive (and on occasion also have ITAR restrictions) that would make export/import difficult if not impossible.

Other Information

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