30 15 summary 4 Article SENER celebrates its 50th anniversary 8 Interview Jorge Sendagorta, SENER President 11 Up-to-date Corporate Space Aeronautics and vehicles Control and Actuation Systems Power and Process Civil Architecture Marine 26 Group 28 Technology FORAN V60 Large movable mirrors structures for solar thermal power plants 34 In Brief Contributors: Luis Bazán, Juan Seijas, Luis Vázquez, Sergi Ametller, Jose Mª Fernandez Ibarz, Ignacio Santos, Eduardo Urgoiti, Carlos Published by Corporate Communication Departament of SENER Compostizo, Manolo Rodríguez, Jose Mª Jiménez Torrecilla, Carlos Ramos, Felix David Hernandez, Sergio Aladrén, Rosa Edit staff: Begoña Francoy, Carolina Tébar, Antonia Gutiérrez, Sacristán, Jesús Mª Lata, Amador López Pina, Rafa Rebolo, Luis Vázquez, Daniel Schmitt, Roberto Felipe, Arturo Olivé, Sonia Calvo, Olivia Cid. Ricardo Lacruz, Lope Seco, Pablo Querol, Ángel Fernández Llata, Ramón Vilardell, Gorka González, Luis Mª San Martín, Photographic documentation: Carolina Tébar. Fernando Mosquera, J.R. Bartolomé, Alfredo Arnedo, María Ugarte, J.A. Gómez Tabarra, Antonio Rodríguez, Alexis Layout: Miriam Hernanz Rasero. Sánchez, Fernando Sánchez Jiménez, Antonio Valderrama, Francisco Soria, Juan Carlos Salas, Fernando Suárez Mejido, Advertising: Lourdes Olabarría. Ignacio Ortega Basagoiti, Mirko Tomán, Miguel Domingo Osle, Juan Francisco Paz. Legal deposit number 1804. Imprenta Garcinuño. SENER celebrates its fiftieth anniversary SENER, the leading Spanish engineering company, commemorates the 50th anniversary of its foundation in Bilbao by Enrique de Sendagorta. Always a pioneering company in the sector, SENER is proud of its fifty years of intuitive tenacious work and its commitment to maximum quality. The company now employs 1,500 professionals, with offices in Bilbao, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Lisbon, the Canary Islands, Buenos Aires and in Mexico and Poland in the very near future. 04 NOTICIAS SENER CORPORATE ARTICLE 2 3 4 1.Cranes designed by SENER for Santurce Port (Bilbo, Spain). 2. First launch Skylark rocket from Kiruna Tower (Sweden). José Manuel de 1 Sendagorta, Carlos Sánchez Tarifa and Chechu RIvacoba took part, among others, of the work team on site. 3.Their Majesties King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, then Prince of Asturias, with Enrique de Sendagorta during their visit to PETRONOR Refinery. 4.FORAN System official presentation in 1967 with José Manuel de Sendagorta and Jaime Torroja. 5.Enrique de Sendagorta. 6.José Manuel de Sendagorta. 7.José Manuel de Sendagorta, in the middle, awarded with La Gran Cruz de Alfonso X El Sabio together with his son Andrés. From right to left, Enrique de Sendagorta, Juan Gardoki, Jesús de Sendagorta, Alejo Aramburu and 5 7 6 Manuel Ruiz de Velasco. 1956, A DATE TO REMEMBER. Spain began to breathe international to the company that he founded albeit from the outside. After more than air when, in 1955, it joined the UN and later the OEEC (antecedent of the a year and a half centred on the commercial development of South Common Market), the key to enter the International Monetary Fund and America, another three years as General Director of Foreign Trade and the World Bank. Shortly before, relations with the government of the after the merger of the Shipping company, where he was the first director, United States and the Vatican had been strengthened and Spain was no with the Euskalduna and Cadiz shipyards, Enrique became the manager longer a political enemy but a strategic ally for controlling southern Europe for PETRONOR, the Bilbao refinery which SENER played a very important during the Cold War. Despite this significant progress, SENER was born role in defining and developing. In the meantime, Jose Manuel, “Manu” in a country of deficiencies and shortage. The Spanish market was isolated to his friends and colleagues, became the manager of SENER in 1960. and tiny, the economy was not very dynamic, with enormous trade deficits In order to take this step, he had to put to one side his facet of engineer and a high level of state interventionism. Everybody worked towards and researcher in INTA, (the Spanish Aerospace Institute) and the working making the “economic miracle” possible, the key driver being first industry, groups organized by Professor Von Karman to study combustion, but and later the service sector, thanks mainly to tourism. In general, a positive the project was worthwhile. After this short introduction to who founded spirit reigned and the first contacts with the world outside held the promise SENER and how, we shall review the main landmarks in the company’s of a positive future. Spanish industry had to improve and adapt to the history. This will take us down several routes, reflecting the four elements latest advances if they wanted to win the battle. that form our corporate identity; earth, sea, air and fire. Just before the 1959 Stabilization Plan, Naval Engineer Dr. Enrique de A COMPANY THAT EMERGED FROM THE SEA TO TOUCH THE Sendagorta constituted the first Spanish company devoted, in its origin, SKY. In 1967 SENER begins its “space adventure” by being the first to the execution of naval and industrial engineering projects and studies. Spanish company to win a tender organized by the European Space The activity began with projects for ship design and export business in Agency (formerly ESRO) for the design and construction of the rocket Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. As already mentioned, although SENER’s launch tower in Kiruna (Sweden). More than ten proposals were presented, first intention was to undertake projects in the naval field, very soon Doctor but the finalists were from England, France and the proposal by a team in Aeronautical Engineering Jose Manuel de Sendagorta, brother of the of Spanish engineers from SENER, headed by Jose Manuel Sendagorta, founder, joined the company and opened the door to other fields of Jose Rivacoba and Carlos Sanchez Tarifa, whose novel design finally activity, such as space, industrial processing plants, the petrochemical convinced European Agency experts. For the first time ESRO awarded sector and civil engineering. a contract directly to Spain. TWO BROTHERS AND A COMMON PROJECT. Enrique and Jose Now, with “almost” 40 years of experience in this field, SENER pioneers Manuel de Sendagorta, both engineers but in different fields, have aerospace research and engineering, with a great vocation for innovation developed their own particular career paths which have led them to the that has successfully been applied in the most important initiatives from same place, SENER. Enrique de Sendagorta has always been very close institutions and international industry. Four decades forging a close NOTICIAS SENER 05 ARTICLE CORPORATE 8 9 10 8.PETROLIBER, Compañía Ibérica Refinadora de Petróleo S.A. 9. Muon drift chambers for nuclear applications 10. Outside of Warsaw Airport dike. 11.Aerial image of Lemoniz Plant building works (Vizcaya, Spain). 12.Parabolic collector for termosolar plants 11 12 relationship with universities and research centres, as well as with the Jorge Grases as fellow travellers. It soon became clear that an explicit main protagonists of Space, the astronauts. mathematical formulation for representing ship hulls in association with SENER has demonstrated its technological ability in flagship projects a computer, could be used not only to represent existing keels but also such as the Hubble telescope and the International Space Station and to generate new forms from a set of main dimensions. over 30 satellites and space vehicles currently in orbit have equipment IN SEARCH OF THE MOST EFFICIENT ENERGY SOURCE. During on board developed by the company. Today SENER is working on some this period and until the nuclear moratorium of 1982, SENER also worked of the largest projects underway at present: the Herschel & Planck scientific intensively in nuclear plants where, in addition, it stood out for being one satellites, the Spanish satellite for Earth observation, Spainsat, the study of the first companies to pay some attention to this energy source. By of combustion under microgravity conditions, and the ConeXpress vehicle a quirk of fate and history, now many experts consider these plants as which will be launched to prolong the working life of satellites in orbit. way of meeting the Kyoto Agreement guidelines. Nuclear power plant And the company continues to accumulate experience in Aeronautics engineering, due to the duration of the works and the link up of some and Vehicles as it participates in the development of the AIRBUS A380 power stations with others, promised a period of activity hitherto unheard and A340, as well as with the work to provide greater levels of safety, of. Unfortunately the moratorium and other sad vicissitudes in Spain’s performance and cost reduction to manufacturers of cars and railway history meant that that promise was never fulfilled. Since then, this rolling stock. department has obtained experience and an important reputation in AND THE SEA AGAIN. A year after it was introduced in Kiruna, SENER several energy-related sectors, such as in refinery or combined cycle officially presented its FORAN System, acronym from the Spanish for power plants. With outstanding “know-how” in gas projects, particularly ANalytical FORms, a computer programme for the design and construction in liquefied natural gas regassification plants, and in everything related to of ships that is currently used by more than a hundred shipyards in over solar thermal energy, where for some time now SENER has been developing twenty countries (China, Russia, U.S.A., Brazil, Italy, France, United its own technologies, taking out several patents in both design software Kingdom,…) and version 60 was brought out in 2005. This all started in and main components for building this type of plant. 1964 when Manuel Sendagorta insisted on identifying and mathematically KILOMETRES AND KILOMETRES. SENER is a point of reference for representing the different types of ship hulls. This task culminated in the transportation infrastructures, railway and road networks, airports and birth of the FORAN System, a CAD/CAE/CAM tool for ship design and seaports, hydraulic works and coastal recovery.