1968-2009: 40 plus years of ISVR Consulting
The Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton is one of the pioneers of university-industry collaboration, and ISVR Consulting can trace its conception to 1966 when an “Advisory Service for Industry” was established within the Institute.
The Rayleigh Building in 1970
The need for this service arose from the increasing pressure placed upon the Institute by industry for help in evaluating and controlling noise and vibration problems. Initially the service was run informally by the academic and research staff, but it soon became clear that the demand was too great for a ‘spare time’ activity and that the service should be organized on a firmer, commercial footing. A full-time staff was essential to offer a rapid and confidential service, and on 1st March 1968 the “Industrial Noise Unit” was formally established, with three consultants, as a self-financing group within the ISVR “. . . to provide, through consultation, assistance to private, industrial, commercial and governmental bodies in resolving problems concerning noise and vibration”. This was the unit which would later become known as “ISVR Consulting”. The Rayleigh Building, which houses the ISVR’s anechoic and reverberant test chambers, was also completed in March 1968, and became the unit’s home.
Also in 1968, the Wolfson Foundation awarded the Institute a sum of £30 000, payable over three years, as “pump priming” support to improve and extend the services provided, the funds to be expended in the appointment of a Technical Manager, an Administrative Officer, and the purchase of laboratory equipment and vehicles for use by the Unit. In recognition of this support, the Unit was renamed “The Wolfson Unit for Noise and Vibration Control” (WUNVC).
The WUNVC continued to grow, and by 1970 the staff numbered seven consultants with six technical assistants and administrative staff. At this time a Technical Manager, Colin Gordon, was appointed. Colin was previously with the noise consultancy of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) in the USA.
In 1972, a part of the Unit concerned with automotive design work “ a specialism distinct from the other areas of involvement of the WUNVC” was formally established as a separate entity under the name “The Automotive Design Advisory Unit” (ADAU) with lab and test facilities at Chilworth to the north of Southampton. In 1975 Colin Gordon returned to BBN, and Andrew Middleton succeeded him as Technical Manager of WUNVC.
The Wolfson / Rayleigh Building today
In 1978 an extension was added to the Rayleigh Building enlarging the ground floor area and adding a new top floor. The extension provided new offices and workshops for the Wolfson Unit for Noise and Vibration Control and the Wolfson Unit for Marine Technology and Industrial Aerodynamics.
The original Rayleigh Building was renamed the Rayleigh Laboratories and the complete extended building became the Wolfson Building. However, the original structure is still known as the Rayleigh Building almost universally.
In 1982 the Wolfson Unit again divided and the “Auditory Communication and Hearing Conservation Unit” (ACHCU) was formed as a separate unit with Peter Wheeler as Manager. ACHCU's main areas of work were speech intelligibility testing of communication systems, development of Active Noise Reduction systems, Adaptive Noise Cancellation systems, warning sound development, noise at work assessments, noise-induced hearing loss, and hearing protector testing.
At around this time, Mike House succeeded Andrew Middleton as manager of WUNVC.
Peter Wheeler moved to Racal Acoustics in 1987, and shortly afterwards, the ACHCU and WUNVC were reunited under the name “ISVR Consultancy Services” with Mike House taking the role of Technical Manager.
Bob Davis took over as Technical Manager in 1990. We began our web site in 1996. Andrew Bullmore took over from Bob in 1999, followed by Stuart Dyne in 2001.
The Automotive Design Advisory Unit became increasingly involved in marine noise and vibration, a natural extension of the automotive work. Reorganisation and rationalisation of the consultancy activities within the ISVR saw ISVR Consultancy Services and the Automotive Design Advisory Unit coming together under the new title “ISVR Consulting” and sharing common administrative and financial procedures.
February 2008 saw the end of the University of Southampton’s Dolphin logo and the beginning of a new corporate branding across the University. As part of the branding we now use a variant of the University's main logo.
ISVR Consulting celebrated its 40th Anniversary in 2008. Since then, the former ADAU activities have relocated from their Chilworth outstation to rejoin the rest of the ISVR Consulting facilities on the University’s Highfield campus. Malcolm Smith took over as manager from October 2009, when Stuart Dyne left for a position with Thales.
So what has changed in 40 years....?
A B&K 2203 sound level meter
and Nagra reel-to-reel tape recorder
in use in the anechoic room,
cutting edge technology ca 1970
... Well the equipment for a start. Back in 1968 noise surveys were done with a B&K 2203 sound level meter on a neck strap, possibly with an octave-band filter set attached, with a Nagra 3 reel-to-reel tape recorder slung over a shoulder The Nagra alone contained 18 D-size NiCad rechargeable batteries. The equipment was ‘portable’ but would probably have been condemned by today's manual handling police. When you'd done a noise survey you certainly felt it. Today our light-weight B&K 2250 sound level meters are called 'hand-held analysers' by the manufacturer, and can log spectra and record ‘wav’ files on memory cards at the press of a button.
A B&K 2250 sound level
meter
In 1968 reports were written long-hand for our secretaries to type up on IBM Golfball typewriters, sometimes using Roneo stencils if a client wanted a lot of copies. Where would we have been without Sellotape and Tippex? Those reports are still in our archive room. We have recently started scanning the old ADAU and ACHCU reports for archiving as soft rather than hard copies.
These days we type our own reports for our secretary to tidy up after us and do the hard bits (like stopping footnotes splitting over 2 pages, and avoiding other ‘features’ of MS Word).
In 1968, it would still be six years until the Institute of Acoustics was formed by British Acoustical Society and the Institute of Physics.
| Services | Facilities
| Site map (contents page) |
| How to find us | How to
contact us |
For further information contact
Malcolm Smith, ManagerISVR Consulting,
University of Southampton,
Highfield,
Southampton,
SO17 1BJ,
United Kingdom
Telephone enquiries: 023 8059 2162 (+44 23 8059 2162 from outside the UK)
Fax: 023 8059 2728 (+44 23 8059 2728 from outside the UK)
Or E-mail: consultancy@isvr.co.uk
This
is