That’s me halfway through my Texan adventure and it’s taken me this long to realise one thing, I hate American TV.  I understand that reading this might make you think I’m wasting time... I don’t watch it that much. However, upon sitting down to watch half an hour before bed last night, it finally clicked. Three sets of adverts during a twenty minute show is just too much. Then I realised the ridiculous magnitude to which is everything is advertised in this city. I think the only time that you can actually escape these constant sales pitches is when you’re in bed.  I don’t know if any of my fellow American interns have seen the new Taco Bell advert (other fast food chains are available) but if I have to see that talking lime again, I’m going to smash up the TV. First rant of the week over.

Over at Wood Group Light industrial Turbines this week I was given the chance to follow a turbine through the rebuild process after repair. This gave me a chance to understand the technical processes involved in a rebuild as well as learn more about the individual components of the turbine. Now bear with me, I’m going to talk about engineering again. One of the most important lessons learned this week was in the importance of balance. By helping out with the compressor-turbine shaft alignment and the mass balance of the compressor itself I managed to gain a fantastic insight into this. If a shaft connection is out of alignment, a mass imbalance can be created. In a rotational system such as a turbine, this is a problem as it leads to vibration. As I described last week, vibrations are a big problem in this type of equipment. As I also mentioned, I was involved with the mass-balancing of the compressor. This process involved assessing where the compressor was out of balance and then removing mass (by drilling) from that area in order to rebalance the compressor. By completing this process, vibration will be avoided and this will prevent the turbine from being damaged during operation.

This week I also had a chance to re-visit an old lesson in engineering, that is, always always ALWAYS get things right the first time around. We had problems in the first week of my placement when time was wasted due to stupid mistake. Last week was similar, mistakes were made and mechanical problems were missed.  This meant full turbine tests had to be repeated. Due to the way which LIT operates this led to a lot of money being spent where it didn’t need to be. This increase in expenditure comes down to parts and man hours but most of all, it’s due to the fact that if a turbine causes a delay while in the test cell, the whole facility seems to grind to a hault, at a massive cost!

This week, five of us went a trip to San Antonio, it was brilliant fun. The river walk through the centre of downtown was especially good. The area was amazing, lined with restaurants, cafes and bars so we all had a great time. On Saturday we got a chance to go and visit the Alamo, which is one of the most symbolic places in the history of Texas.  Mind your feet, I’m about to drop some knowledge...During the Texas revolution, in 1836, General Santa Anna of Mexico laid siege to the Alamo mission. After 13 days of the siege the Mexican army made one last push and slaughtered the defenders. A month later, inspired by the story of what had happened and by a desire for revenge, the Texan army defeated the Mexicans at the battle of San Jacinto, ending the revolution and sealing Texas’ place as part of the US. It was also interesting to learn of the Scottish connection intertwined with the evolution of Texas. Some of the main players at the battle, including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, were of Scottish decent.

On the way back, the five of us had a trip to Schlitterbahn, which is a chain of water parks in this part of the world.  Anton’s lack of the required co-ordination to sit in an inner-tube was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much!

This week also allowed me to experience the awesomeness of the cheesecake factory. A few of us popped in for tea after a spot of shopping in the Galleria. The food was amazing and the portion size blew us away, however, we all made the rookie mistake of eating so much that we left no room for cheesecake... we will be going back!

Anyway, I think that’s just about enough for this week, but I’ll leave you with this, could the world not function without prime-time adverts for adult diapers!

Scott T.