Owens Community College recently unveiled a new $1.1 million Welding Design Center on the Toledo-area Campus.

The educational center, which previously held Penta Career Center’s Welding and Automotive Collision Repair Labs, is equipped with state-of-the-art technological and academic resources specific to welding for several degree and certificate programs.

The center is a continuation of the college’s ongoing campus expansion initiative on the new south campus, which formerly was the home to Penta Career Center.

Owens welding student Scott McDonald of Toledo performs a 6G welding performance test in one of the Welding Design Center's new welding booths.

Owens began the 2010-11 academic year by unveiling a $2.9 million Heritage Hall bu

ilding in the former Penta Skill Center. The 38,304 square-foot Heritage Hall project was preceded by the opening of a refurbished 29,045 square-foot Founders Hall in the former Penta Administration Building in January 2010.

“The new Welding Design Center enables the Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Operations to more than double our degree and certificate program opportunities for area residents within the academic field of welding,” said Jim Gilmore, chair of Manufacturing and Industrial Operations. “The need for highly skilled welding professionals is greater than ever before. This newly renovated building, which is unlike any other educational welding facility of its kind in the region, will provide our students with the latest in academic resources to prepare them for careers within the welding industry.”

The 14,512 square-foot Welding Design Center features two dedicated instructional classrooms and two expansive experiential learning classroom areas for instruction and hands-on learning. The complex also includes three offices, a locker room area, and men’s and women’s restroom facilities.

The learning classrooms house 60 welding booths, 12 cutting booths and eight grinding stations, all with leading edge technology for students to receive hands-on training specific to SMAW (stick), GMAW (MIG) and GTAW (TIG) welding processes. Thirty-six booths have the capability of utilizing argon and carbon dioxide for welding purposes, while oxygen and acetylene are featured in 12 cutting booths. The Welding Design Center also includes a 1,813 square-foot storage complex for welding materials, which is located adjacent to the educational facility.

Additionally, 68 stations feature an innovative welding fume extraction system, state-of-the-art technology designed to extract metalworking particulate in a controlled direction, filter the particulate through a self-cleaning unit and re-circulate the filtered air throughout the new Welding Design Center. The process enhances energy efficiency and saves on heating and cooling costs.

The learning areas are also equipped with multimedia capability including dedicated instructor stations in which faculty members can utilize an Extron Control Panel system, which features a dedicated computer, a digital document camera, a Blu-ray DVD Player, and audio amplifier and speakers.

Each academic area also houses ceiling-mounted digital/analog and high definition capable projectors and screens for instructional purposes and feature the latest in computing resources, including an array of software applications and programming languages as well as network and high-speed Internet access.

Designed with energy efficiency and conservation in mind, each room’s bank of lights automatically power down after a period of time without detected movement. The entire facility includes building automation heating and air conditioning.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed