On the 5th of February, sixteen Mollier members were able to visit the laboratories of Peutz in Molenhoek, which is located in the most northern part of Limburg. When we arrived, Peutz had prepared a very nice lunch for us. After the lunch we were introduced to the company.

Casper Esmeijer, the director of Peutz, started the presentation by welcoming us and he explained a little bit about what Peutz does. Tim Weekenstroo continued the presentation and showed us some interesting projects they were working on, like the new railroad bridge across the A1, were they advised in the acoustical optimization of the bridge. Manon Derks, old treasurer and commissioner education of the 18th board of Mollier, talked about her daily activities at Peutz. Manon started working at Peutz just before our company visit of last year, and now works at Peutz for almost a year.

After the presentations, we were divided in two groups. One group was guided by Tim and the other group by Manon. We saw the rooms for acoustical measurements, were sound experiments are conducted. One of the rooms was an anechoic chamber, which means there is almost no reflection of sound. This was quite a strange experience. We also visited a storage room of enormous 1:10 scale models of some imposing theaters. These were used for acoustical experiments. We were also able to see the climate rooms, were experiments are conducted under extremely precise conditions.

We also visited the wind tunnel and even had the possibility to go inside. A lot of us were surprised by the enormous size of the space behind the actual test area. The picture below was taken in front of the fans of the wind tunnel, which shows how large it is.

Unfortunately, we were not able to visit the fire laboratory due to an experiment that was in process. However, we saw some videos of experiments during the presentation so we still had a good idea of what Peutz does in the field of fire safety.

We would like to thank Peutz for making the company visit possible and showing us the interesting facilities they have.