TESLA

Tesla Engineering Ltd is a UK based privately owned group of manufacturing companies.

The Tesla Gradient Division is one of the top three manufacturers of MRI gradient coils in the world. The group manufactures approximately 1000 MRI gradient coils per year. Tesla has designed, manufactured and installed a number of MRI gradients for UHF magnet systems both in the US and Europe.

The Tesla Magnet Division has successfully developed and developed 7T MRI magnet for GE Healthcare. The group is now testing a 9.4T UHF magnet, this will be the first 9.4T magnet to be installed in Asia. Currently tesla has been asked to keep the end user confidential.

Role:

Task leader for T5.5 “Gradient coils technology for high field MRI, over 10 T”
Main contributor WP3 “FuSuMaTech Road mapping” and in the WP5, T5.2 “Frontier edge High Field MRI 16 T concept magnet”
Contributor to WP2: State of the art for the two domains “High field accelerator magnets” and “MRI, NMR and other industrial projects”
Contributor to WP6: Public engagement, Dissemination, exploitation, communication, and IP Management

Relevant Projects:

METAscan

Compact 7T UHF MRI system for metabolic Imaging, 2016, NOW Grant, Dennis Klomp

7T MRI Magnet

Strategic Partnership GE Healthcare, Commercial funded, 2014, Simon Pittard

9.4T MRI Magnet

Supply Agreement, Confidential, National Government Grant, 2014, Simon Pittard

Additional Information

Infrastructure

Tesla Engineering in the UK has a large manufacturing facility that builds UHF MRI magnets and gradients.

Key Personnel

Dr Michael Begg – Group Managing Director

PhD in Electrical Engineering, Imperial College London, MBA Henley Management College. Over 25 years’ experience in the design and construction of superconducting and conventional electromagnets for particle physics research, fusion research and medical applications.

Dr Simon Pittard – Managing Director – Magnet Division

PhD and BEng in Medical Physics, University of Exeter.
25 years’ working in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging industry, involved with both project and product management of MRI systems, MRI gradient coils and MRI superconducting magnets. An experienced General Manager of a superconducting magnet business focusing on supplying ultra-high field MRI magnets to OEM customers.

Mr Steve Bates – Managing Director – Gradient Division

M.Sc. Computer Technology in Manufacture
Worked at Tesla since 1987, involved with magnet design & engineering as Project Manager and Production Manager.
Board Director since 1995
Now, Managing Director, Gradient Coil Division

Dr Ben Leigh - Engineering Director

PhD and BEng in Materials Science, University of Bath.
Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineering
Over 15 years’ experience in practical engineering, with experience of the design, construction and testing of resistive and superconducting magnet systems and MRI gradient coils.
Lead the team at Tesla that developed a commercial compact Cyclotron that utilises a novel react and wind Nb₃Sn wire in channel conductor.

Rory Warner – Research Scientist

Chartered Physicist. BSc in Physics, Birmingham University
Senior magnet designer for GE Medical Systems, Varian, Inc. and Agilent Technologies prior to joining Tesla Engineering.
30 years’ experience designing ultra-high field (3T – 11.7T) superconducting MRI magnet systems. Expert in electromagnetic design, cryogenics and superconducting magnet design.
Rory led the development of Tesla’s first 7T active shield MRI magnet built for GE Healthcare, currently Rory is project manager for Tesla’s first 9.4T human MRI magnet system based on NbTi technology.

Dr Johannes van Oort – Engineering Manager – Magnet Division

PhD and MSc in Applied Physics, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
Over 25 years of experience in superconducting materials and magnet design & manufacturing, in particular high field NbTi and Nb₃Sn accelerator magnets for CERN, SSC and other accelerators, MRI magnets and imaging systems and various other applications of superconducting devices at CERN, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, General Electric and co-founder of Alltech Medical Systems.

Mike Nakatsu - Project Manager

MSc in Applied Physics, BEng in Mechanical Engineering, Yamagata University, Japan.
Over 10 years’ experience in research, design and development of magnets and gradient coils for MRI systems. Extensive experience in research and development of cryogenic and vacuum equipment. Expert in computational calculation of heat budgets for cryogenic equipment and the application of F.E. analysis.

Dr Simon Keys – Engineering Manager

PhD in Applied Superconductivity, University of Durham. MSci (Hons) in Physics, University of Durham.
Measurement and modelling of the critical current of commercial Nb₃Sn and Nb₃Al superconducting wires as a function of their operating parameters (magnetic field, temperature and strain). This included characterisation and analysis of wires for the ITER thermonuclear fusion reactor project. 8 academic publications in internationally recognised journals and books.
13 years post PhD experience in the design, construction and project management of superconducting magnet systems and electromagnets for MRI and high field superconducting magnet systems using Nb₃Sn for NMR up to magnetic fields of 23.5 T.

Marc Van Leusen – General Manager

B.Eng Manufacturing Engineering. M.Eng Business Management.
10 Years’ experience in project management and production supervision of the production of fusion coils, accelerator magnets and MRI gradient coils. Specialist in short lead NPI (New Product Introduction) and design to manufacture transition.
Responsible for the manufacturing of all magnets at Tesla, and has previously been project manager for the Max Planck IPP Fusion Stellarator W7-X superconducting Poloidal Field Coils.

Michael Pearson – New Product Introduction Manager

BTEC in Mechanical & Production Engineering and HTEC in Production Engineering Oxford Brookes University.
30 years’ experience in the manufacture of superconducting magnet systems. Operations Manager in Agilent magnet facility prior to joining Tesla.

Publications

Rory Warner. Ultra-high field magnets for whole-body MRI. Superconductor Science and Technology, Volume 29 / IOP September 2016

Rory Warner, Simon Pittard, New Developments in NMR, Magnetic Resonance Technology, Superconductor Science and Technology (2016).

J.M. van Oort, E.T. Laskaris, P.S. Thompson, B. Dorri, and K.G. Herd, "A cryogen-free 0.5 testa MRI magnet for head imaging", Advances in Cryogenic Engineering, vol 43, 1998.

K.M. Amm, R.A. Ackermann, P.S. Thompson, A. Mogro-Campero, and J.M. van Oort, 'Thermal conductivity of 34-700 Carbon Fiber Composites and Cryogenic Temperatures," Advances in Cryogenic Engineering, Volume 46, part A (2000).

Zanming Wang, J.M. van Oort, Mark X. Zou, "Development of superconducting magnet for high-field MR systems in China," Physica C: Superconductivity,Volume 482,20 November 20 12,Pages 80-86

S A Keys and D P Hampshire - Measurement and Interpretation of Electromagnetic Properties - Characterization of conductors. Handbook of Superconducting Materials, eds. D Cardwell and D Ginley (Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing) pp.1297-1322 (2003

S A Keys and D P Hampshire - A scaling law for the critical current density of weakly and strongly-coupled superconductors, used to parameterise data from a technological Nb3Sn strand, Supercon. Sci. Technol. 16 1097-1108 (2003)

G D Brittles, P Noonan, S A Keys, C R M Grovenor and S Speller - Rapid characterisation of persistent current joints by SQUID magnetometry, Supercond. Sci. Technol. 27 (2014)

CERN Accelerating science

METAscan

7T MRI Magnet

9.4T MRI Magnet

Additional Information

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