This stainless steel sculpture was a joint project between Blackpool Borough Council, artist Lucy Glendinning, Casey Construction and fabricator m-tec. It has been designed to reflect Blackpool’s coastal location and resort status and is made from Outokumpu’s duplex stainless steel. The giant wave of steel represents a breaking wave and it stands 10.5 metres high, 2.5 metres wide and 0.5 metres deep, and weighs 14 metric tonnes.

The sculpture was fabricated from 2205 duplex stainless steel consisting of 20mm thick internal ribs and clad in an 8mm thick skin. The steel was polished to a mirror finish and contains an array of computer controlled LED lighting internally to emit light through the complex pattern designed by the artist.

m-tec specialise in fabrications of complex shapes and this particular structure challenged the team to produce the artist’s requirements. Outokumpu is pleased to be working alongside m-tec to provide the material for such projects.

Duplex 2205 was chosen by m-tec because of the area where it is situated in order to provide the necessary corrosion resistance, as well as the high strength of the material.

The Wave Project: Photography courtesy of Photo-Genics and m-tec

The company says that they tend to favour duplex 2205 in most of their projects and will be working with Outokumpu for future projects. In this particular case duplex 2205 was a good choice due to the coastal application that it has gone in to.