Engineering Firm Wins Award for Work on CLS

Posted June 21, 2001


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Thursday, June 21, 2001 2001-06-04-OTHER

Engineering Firm Wins Award for Work on CLS

UMA Group Ltd. has won an award of excellence for technical innovation from
the Consulting Engineers of Saskatchewan recognizing work on the Canadian
Light Source (CLS) synchrotron project under construction at the University
of Saskatchewan.

UMA is providing project and construction management, engineering for the
design of the building, and support engineering for the entire
$173.5-million project, which is on time and on budget.

"We felt that the constraints they had to meet were very demanding and
required innovative solutions," said Bob Gander, U of S electrical
engineering professor and one of the judges for the award. "The most amazing
constraint to me was that the floor has to stay level to 35 microns. It's
phenomenal that they can design a floor which is a slab the size of a
football field and can stay that stable."

Gander noted the building must be stable enough that vibrations from traffic
or wind won't disturb the sensitive equipment. Another major challenge was
designing the booster and storage ring enclosures which must be kept at 27
degrees Celsius, and can vary only by 0.1 degree.

"It speaks to the caliber of Saskatchewan engineers that this kind of
project was designed in the province using local engineers," Gander said.

UMA, a Canadian employee-owned company founded in Saskatoon and based in
Vancouver, has been part of the CLS since it was in the conceptual stage in
1996. The engineering firm will manage the construction of the synchrotron
until it begins operations in early 2004.

Sub-consultants working with UMA on the CLS include AODBT Architects, AMEC
Earth & Environmental, Bruce Sparling and BKL and Associates. U of S
Facilities Management provided the climate control system design.

The synchrotron is a huge, doughnut-shaped ring that accelerates a stream of
electrons and manipulates them to create a beam of light billions of times
brighter than the sun. This rare light can then be used by industrial and
university researchers as a revolutionary new tool to observe structures and
chemical reactions at a molecular level.

CES is an organization that works to strengthen consulting engineering in
Saskatchewan and promote excellence in engineering.

The CLS is wholly owned by the University of Saskatchewan. Construction of
the project is mainly funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the
Canadian government, the Saskatchewan government, the Ontario Innovation
Trust, the Alberta government, the U of S, the City of Saskatoon and
SaskPower.

For more information, please contact:

Kathryn Warden
Research Communications Officer
University of Saskatchewan
Tel: (306) 966-2506
Fax: (306) 966-2411
kathryn.warden@usask.ca