After Implementing the Automatic Maintenance Crane for The Largest Research Center in The World UoB And CERN In a Series of New Projects… Success Leads to Success

University of Bahrain – Sakhir (Ali Al-Sabbagh)
24 July 2022
After its success in the first cooperation with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) through the design and implementation of an automatic maintenance crane, the University of Bahrain is preparing to carry out more cooperative projects with the Center in several projects.
After years of cooperation, by CERN – the largest research center in the world – accepting to train a group of UoB students annually in the summer training period among 300 selected students from all over the world; The University took one further step in this cooperation by manufacturing an automatic crane platform to maintain the largest device in the world, and the completion of the data processing project, in addition to sending several students to train and work in this significant European organization.
Dr. Jawaher bint Shaheen Al-Mudhahki, University of Bahrain President, expressed her pride in the results achieved as a result of the scientific cooperation between the university and CERN in implementing advanced projects, the results in line with the highest international standards. Noting this enabled the National University to implement more projects in cooperation with the organization, which is the world’s largest laboratory for particle physics research.
Morevr, Dr. Al-Mudhahki recently inspected the College of Engineering’s workshop to see the automated crane platform completed by the College of Engineering team, accompanied by , Martin Gastal, CERN’s consultant for the Middle East and North Africa, where she listened to a detailed explanation on the crane’s work, which will be used to maintain the largest device in the world used by the organization, which extends across the borders of France and Switzerland.
It is expected that the crane will be shipped and sent to CERN to be installed and operated in the coming weeks. The new platform – manufactured by the College of Engineering – will replace the current platform that is used to maintain the detector manually.
Moreover, the University President said, “Working in cooperation with CERN is an opportunity to communicate with the highest standards of manufacturing, a partnership that various universities aspire for”, Stressing that “this experiment opened the door for more practical projects with the largest atomic and nuclear science complex in the world.”
She also pointed out that this “partnership” began in cooperation with the “Research/ibhath” Foundation of the Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Center for Culture & Research, and for the benefit of CERN. She added that this promotes working as a team to establish the Kingdom of Bahrain’s name in this highly important research center, stressing that there are many aspects of cooperation that the University is discussing with CERN today that motivate the University’s members, in more than one college, to move forward in the completion of such projects that raise their capabilities to the maximum limits.

Advantages of UoB’s crane
The cooperation led to producing the “automatic crane platform”, which was designed and implemented by the College of Engineering at the request of CERN has several advantages, the most important being that it reduces the period of inserting the platform and installing it in the muon detector from about two days to several hours, stated Dr. Sheikha Haifa bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, Dean of the College of Engineering at UoB.
Dr. Sheikha Haifa bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, also indicated that – in the context of her speech about the advantages of this crane – that the “crane” work team was able to reduce its weight from approximately 16 tons to only three tons, in addition to the automatic control of it through highly advanced sensors, and in a safe manner within about five levels of safety and security, indicating that the crane stops automatically in several cases, including the period prior to a collision or slipping.
The Dean of the College of Engineering indicated that the automatic crane was operated and tested by Bureau Veritas, which is specialized in granting international certificates to ensure compatibility between designs and implementation, in accordance with the conditions and standards of quality and safety, noting that the device was approved by the company after its testing. Also, she praised the students participating in the project, including: Abdulsalam Saad, Ahmed Abdulrahman Al-Hamid, and Mohammed Waleed Al-Ansari, and praised the efforts made by the technical assistant in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the College, Mohammed Saq Saeed.

Further Joint Projects
When the fruits of cooperation show between two or more parties, it encourages the continuation of such projects that will reflect positively on both parties, especially the University as a knowledge producer, and research centers, said the Dean of the College of Science at UoB, Prof. Dr. Mohammed Mustafa Al-Hilo.
He added that the University has become a participating member in the muon detector experiment since 2019, and since then several projects have been implemented, including: A project by the College of Information Technology in the field of data processing, and a project by the College of Engineering to design and implement the automatic crane, as the College of Engineering is currently working on implementing two new projects in the field of sensors and cooling in the muon detector.
Furthermore, Dr. Al-Hilo pointed out that several students were sent to work and train in scientific projects in the Swiss city of Geneva, the latest of whom was the student Noor Suwaidan, and the student Hassan Al-Faraj, from the Physics Department at the University’s College of Science.
Dr. Al-Hilo praised the University students’ work and their training in the most important center for scientific research in the world in the field of elementary particles, stressing that it is a unique opportunity to communicate with international research teams, participate in major scientific experiments, and students from all over the world.
While the Dean of the College of Information Technology at the University, Dr. Hessa Jassem Al-Junaid, was no less optimistic than her counterpart, Prof. Al-Hilo, expressing her happiness with the expansion of scientific cooperation between UoB and CERN, which began by sending one of the College’s students to help implement a project to use a data processing unit to reconstruct the event of the collision of protons, a project that paved the way for continuous cooperation in the field of technology.
Dr. Al-Junaid also confirmed that the College will continue its endeavors to send more students within joint projects in the field of technology and information technology, as this experience helps students develop their scientific and practical abilities and gain more experiences. she added, “What does a serious researcher student desire more than to be trained in a center where more than 16,000 scientists, researchers and doctoral students work, and more than 100 countries are involved in its research?!”.

• 
• 
• 
• 
•