Hi everyone,
I think that it’s about time for blog number two now that I’ve just finished the first week of my placement with Wood Group’s light industrial turbines division in Houston, Texas.
The five other WG interns and I arrived in Houston on Saturday evening and were taken to our apartments. Our homes for the next 8 weeks are unbelievable; we’ve spent most of our evenings by the swimming pool. From what we’ve experienced so far Houston is an amazing city with many different cultures, and I can’t wait to explore it further. Before departing Scotland we had all been told about what to expect weather-wise in Texas, the main topic of discussion being the temperature. With the added effect of the humidity it might actually be too hot here... Only joking, 35 Celsius and sunny is just about right! Apologies to anyone who’s reading this back at home. Since arriving everyone we’ve spoken to has been really nice and have offered us advice of the best places to visit and things to do. We’re definitely not going to be bored here in our time outside of work! Following on from what the other Houston based interns already mentioned; we had a surreal experience at the Houston Dynamo game during the week. It was a really fun night, but the referee got off far too lightly for some appalling decisions in my opinion. Sometimes people in this area are just too polite!
On Monday morning the six of us started work together with company inductions at Wood Group’s main offices in Houston. Throughout the day we were taken around the city for introductions to the various facilities where we would be working, and the people we would be working with. Then on Tuesday I travelled to LIT’s factory where I began my first day as an engineer in the company’s turbine test cell. The purpose of this part of the Gas Turbine Services business is to overhaul and repair light industrial turbines which are operating in the field. These turbines are used in various capacities around the world and find their way to Wood Group for repairs and overhaul outside of warranty or following a failure. When my job was outlined to me by my superiors on Tuesday morning it was described as an opportunity to gain some invaluable hands-on experience working with the turbines. They believed that this was something that was missing from a lot of graduate engineer’s CV’s. After a slightly nervous start, and a wee bit of not wanting to touch anything In case I break it, I feel that I’m beginning to settle, and now totally agree. By being involved in the installation of the turbine and the arrays of sensors and controls that go with it, you learn extremely quickly how the machine as a whole operates. It was a fantastic week and already I feel that I’ve been able to further my understanding of the principles behind gas turbines which I developed at university. Although it was a greatly beneficial week, it was also very frustrating. Mechanical failures and mistakes being made led to massive delays, and a few extremely long shifts. However I do feel this was a good test of the team of engineers’ character. When the systems crashed, problems were dealt with and solved efficiently, and effective trouble shooting led to answers being found. This is an extremely rewarding feeling at the end of a fourteen hour shift.
Anyway, I’ll not bore you all with too much engineering talk and leave it there for this week. I hope everyone’s having a good a time as us here in Houston and I look forward to reading more of your experiences.
Scott T