Tesla Engineering Ltd - Magnets for accelerators to MRI machines
Tesla Engineering Ltd, based in Southeast England,were founded in 1973 specifically to design and manufacture magnets for early particle accelerators. Now the business covers the design and manufacture of resistive magnets, gradient coils for MRI machines and superconducting magnets for cutting edge research facilities, along with specialist industrial applications.
What did CERN need?
Tesla Engineering Ltd have been supplying CERN with magnets since the company’s inception. Particle accelerators use a wide range of magnets to shape, focus and direct the beams of particles as they accelerate, as they pass through the detectors and to refocus the beam after it passes through the detectors.
In 1984 Tesla Engineering Ltd provided over 500 sextupole magnets to CERN for the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider – the largest electron-positron accelerator ever built and the precursor to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). When the LEP was decommissioned to make way for the LHC, Tesla were contracted to produce the next generation of magnets, supplying over 1500 super conducting magnets for the next generation machine.
With each iteration or upgrade to CERN’s vast accelerator complex, new and innovative magnets play an important role. Tesla Engineering have been involved in multiple projects including detailed feasibility studies for novel magnet designs, the design and manufacture of complete superconducting magnet systems, development of high temperature superconductor leads and the testing of cryogen free magnets and coils.
What’s it like working with CERN?
CERN has been part of Tesla’s customer base since the company was founded and the partnership continues to the present day. Andy Ralston is Tesla’s Sales Manager. He says, “As a company we have grown with CERN – we work closely with them in the design, manufacture and installation of a range of magnets. It’s a really good relationship where we know from experience what CERN expect, and we work with them to deliver the quality that they need. We have an ongoing commitment to develop our manufacturing and measurement techniques, meaning that we can often exceed the demanding specifications that are necessary for modern accelerators.”
What was the impact on Tesla Engineering Ltd?
Working with CERN was core to Tesla’s business in the early days. Having established themselves as an early leader in magnet technologies, Tesla Engineering Ltd have been involved with multiple world leading facilities including Argonne and Fermilab in the US, ESRF in France and DESY and the Max Planck Institutes in Germany, as well as in the UK’s national facilities at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.
Tesla’s pioneering expertise and reputation in the design and manufacture of magnets also put them in an excellent position to respond to the growing demand for magnets in the Fusion sector, where they are now supporting and enabling this international research effort, through the specialist supply of critical magnetic confinement components for fusion experiments around the world.
However Big Science research infrastructure is not the only growth area for superconducting magnets. The use of superconducting magnets in medical applications, particularly for MRI machines, has demanded significant development and innovation, and Tesla Engineering’s experience from CERN uniquely positioned the company to respond rapidly to this emerging market. Today a significant proportion of Tesla Engineering’s sales are exports for medical applications, for both clinical and pioneering research MRI systems. In support of these research efforts, Tesla expanded its superconducting manufacturing facilities to increase production capacity for UHF magnets used in MRI systems, where the company now has the industry’s most experienced design team for UHF MRI magnets and a new $5M magnet manufacturing facility developed specifically for this market.
Andy says, “The company was founded on the need to develop innovative magnet technologies for pioneering particle physics research. We’ve grown since then to an international group with the wholly owned subsidiaries of Futura Composites B.V. and Tesla Dynamic Coils B.V. both located in The Netherlands, and Everson Tesla Inc. located in the USA. While we’re still world leaders in the design and manufacture of magnets for particle accelerators, the medical market is now a major revenue stream for us, hence our recent investment in a new manufacturing facility in the UK.”
“Our expertise, developed specifically for particle physics applications, is now recognised globally in science, industrial and medical markets, and increasingly in supplying advanced superconducting magnets for emerging markets such as nuclear fusion, renewable energy sources, semi-conductor processing and cancer therapy.”
Andy Ralston, Tesla Sales Manager
For more information, please contact the UK Industrial Liaison Office:
Richard Farrow, Head of Industrial Liaison
richard.farrow@stfc.ukri.org | Tel: +44 7596 888677
Sara Fletcher, Deputy Head of Industrial Liaison
sara.fletcher@stfc.ukri.org | Tel: +44 7733 265422
Alan Silverman, Assistant UK ILO
Alan.silverman@cern.ch
Julie Perrin, ILO Assistant, Price Enquiries
Julie.perrin@stfc.ukri.org
If you need help with export, please contact:
Marie Gow, Senior Trade Officer
Marie.Gow@fcdo.gov.uk
Tel: +41 79 663 9246 | www.export.great.gov.uk/
