National Engineering Laboratory

The National Engineering Laboratory (NEL) was originally one of several large government-funded public research laboratories in the UK, staffed by scientists and engineers of the Scientific Civil Service. Other such laboratories include the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC), the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and the Transport Research Establishment (TRL).

NEL was established in 1948 at Thorntonhall under the name Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory (MERL), in the village of the same name near East Kilbride, Glasgow, Scotland. The location was partly dictated by politics, since it was realised that Scotland did not have a UK public research establishment (in contrast to its defence establishments). There was also debate on whether the new laboratory would be an outpost of the prestigious NPL (which now has its main base in Teddington, just west of London), or have a separate identity. Eventually the latter course was taken with the new laboratory focussing on mechanical engineering research, complementing the work of the then CEGB laboratories in electrical engineering when the name was changed to NEL.

As NEL expanded, it moved to a large, purpose-built site in East Kilbride itself. Under the control of the Director, it was then part of the DTI. The 'lab' was organised into a number of subject-based divisions, including Creep Division, an important part of the UK effort to catalogue wear characteristics of materials, a Control Systems Division, Manufacturing Services Division, Fluid Power Division and Design Analysis Division. The last of these was in the forefront in the use of the emerging technology of Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Indeed, the growing need for quality-assurance in FEA led to the foundation of the National Agency for Finite Element Methods and Standards, now operating simply as NAFEMS.

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