About the Project
The Yorkshire Steel Man was a planned 30-metre-high stainless-steel sculpture and visitor centre, to be located above the M1 Junction 34, near the Tinsley viaduct. The project planned to honour the people and places in Yorkshire that forged a lasting legacy in many industries and also signpost the new technologies that will secure the region’s future success.
As part of the fundraising activity for the project the concept for the Heart of Steel was developed; a metal heart that would go inside the Steel Man, and with the names of thousands of supporters engraved on it.
Sculptor Steve Mehdi designed a heart sculpture that was faithful to the Steel Man’s strong design and used a classic heart shape that would be easily recognised.
The Challenge
Firstly, we had to reproduce precise representation of the original 300mm heart model which Steve had designed in brown packing tape. The PES Scanning team used our 3Dscanning equipment to accurately capture the model, and from the data captured, a CAD model was produced so that our engineers could start to adapt the model design for production.
The first Heart was produced at a height of 3.5 metre and was located in the Minster Gardens, next to Rotherham Minster in Rotherham town centre.
As the project continued, a partnership was forged with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) which would provide funds both for the charity and the Steel Man project. This led to the development of a second heart; the different production methods necessitating a second design for manufacture whilst retaining the overall look and feel of the original heart design.
The design from the PES Performance engineers was manufactured by Doncasters Bramah Ltd, using Inconel supplied by Maher Ltd. Inconel is a superalloy normally seen in high-performance engine parts for aerospace and Formula One. This means that the heart won’t erode or corrode in ways that steels could be prone to do. Names of the donors are added to the Heart each month by Pryor Marking Technology.
In the short term, the Heart has been installed in Meadowhall shopping centre, along with a scaled version of the Steel Man. The long-term goal is for the huge metal Heart to be finally placed inside the Steel Man overlooking Sheffield & Rotherham.