Total Vibration Solutions wins contract from London 2012 to help suppress the unwelcome sound of rainfall on the roof

Britain’s wet summer has brought an Olympic windfall for a British company. Total Vibration Solutions (TVS), a Haslingden-based noise and vibration control specialist, has won a contract from London 2012 to help suppress the unwelcome sound of rainfall on the roof of its International Broadcasting and Media Centre.

Recent heavy rain revealed that the metal roof of the 4,500 tonne steel structure located within the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, and recently opened by Lord Coe, Chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, creates too much noise and vibration when the heavens open. The 24-hour media hub, home for some 20,000 broadcasters, journalists and photographers, will be bringing the games to an estimated four-billion people.

Total Vibration Solutions, which specialises in noise and vibration supression has won the contract to supply a specialist one millimetre thick self-adhesive acoustic damping material to cover part of the building’s 28,000m2 roof. So, should the unpredictable weather continue, the media won’t be troubled by the cloudbursts.

Said TVS Managing Director Paul Lafone: “The wet weather has been unprecedented, so the organisers clearly want to ensure that they are prepared, even if the worst should happen during the Games. During my visit with the London 2012 venue & infrastructure team I actually took along a pair of symbols, one with and one without our TVS damping sheet applied, just to illustrate its effectiveness in solving the noise and vibration problems in metallic surfaces. Unorthodox, but it seems to have demonstrated the perfect solution.”