engineering

Heathrow Terminal 2

Heathrow Terminal 2 is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Heathrow Terminal 2 rather than just read about it. In short: Heathrow Terminal 2, also known as The Queen's Terminal, is an airport terminal at Heathrow Airport, the main airport serving London, United Kingdom. The new development was originally named Heathrow East Terminal, and occupies the sites where the previous Terminal 2 and the Queens Building stood.

Key takeaways

Heathrow Terminal 2 belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Heathrow Terminal 2 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Heathrow Terminal 2 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Heathrow Terminal 2, also known as The Queen's Terminal, is an airport terminal at Heathrow Airport, the main airport serving London, United Kingdom. The new development was originally named Heathrow East Terminal, and occupies the sites where the previous Terminal 2 and the Queens Building stood. It was designed by Luis Vidal + Architects and opened on 4 June 2014. The original Terminal 2 opened in 1955 as the first terminal at Heathrow, named the Europa Building. When Terminal 1 was built in May 1969, the Europa Building was renamed Terminal 2 to avoid confusion. Terminal 1 closed to passengers on 30 June 2015, although as Terminal 1's baggage system is used by Terminal 2, part of it will remain operational. Terminal 1 is due to be demolished, allowing for Terminal 2 to be extended at an as yet undisclosed date. In 2015, Terminal 2 handled 16.7 million passengers on 116,861 flights and 22.5% of the airport's passengers on 25.2% of its flights with an average of 130 passengers per flight.

History

Original terminal

The first building to be known as Terminal 2 was Heathrow's oldest terminal. It was designed by Frederick Gibberd and opened as the Europa Building in 1955. He also designed the adjacent Queens Building. The old Terminal 2 had an area of 49,654 square metres (534,470 sq ft) and in its lifetime saw 316 million passengers pass through its doors. Originally designed to handle around 1.2 million passengers annually, in its final years of operation it often accommodated around 8 million. On 20 April 1984, a bomb exploded in the baggage area of T2, injuring 22 people, including one seriously. Despite the efforts of maintenance staff and various renovations and upgrades over the years, the building became increasingly decrepit and unserviceable. It was closed on 23 November 2009; Air France flight AF1881 to Paris was the last flight to depart from the terminal. The building was demolished in 2010, and the resulting space was combined with the adjacent area where the Queen's Building stood until its demolition in 2009 to form the site for the new terminal.

New terminal Approval for the new terminal, originally named Heathrow East, was granted by the then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and Hillingdon Council in May 2007.

Design

The new terminal's design continues the "toast rack" principle employed in the construction of Terminal 5, a layout that maximises use of the airport's land by placing the terminal building and its satellites perpendicular to the runways. Like Terminal 5, much of the building was constructed off-site, helping to overcome many of the logistical constraints of building in one of the world's busiest international airports. The terminal is split into two connected buildings, Terminal 2A and Terminal 2B. 2A was designed by Luis Vidal + Architects (LVA) and built by a joint venture between Ferrovial and Laing O'Rourke. All European carriers except Icelandair use terminal 2A to board and disembark passengers. Air Canada and Turkish Airlines also use this building for their short haul flights. 2B was designed by Grimshaw Architects, and built by Balfour Beatty. All international carriers use terminal 2B. Icelandair is the only European carrier to use Terminal 2B. The gates in the new T2 are numbered in concourse A (gates 1–26) and concourse B (gates 28–49). The new Terminal 2 is designed to produce 40% fewer carbon dioxide emissions than the buildings it has replaced. 20% of this target will be achieved through energy efficiency design technology elements, such as high levels of insulation, a comprehensive colour changing LED lighting installation designed by StudioFractal and extensive natural lighting. Large north-facing windows in the roof will flood the building with natural light, reducing the need for artificial lighting, without generating excess heat. Photovoltaic (solar) panels on the roof will further reduce dependency on energy supplies. The remaining 20% carbon reduction will be due to the new T2 Energy Centre, via biomass CHP fuelled by woodchips from local renewable resources, will provide heating and cooling to both Heathrow Terminal 2 and Heathrow Terminal 5.

Construction

Construction of the terminal has been spread across two phases. The first phase, started in 2009 and completed in June 2014, involved the demolition of the old terminal and construction of half of the main terminal building, and the completion of the 522-metre (1,713 ft) satellite building Terminal 2B. The second phase is due to begin after the demolition of Terminal 1 and will involve the construction of the second half of Terminal 2 in its place. It had originally been expected that the second phase would be completed around 2019, but in February 2013 Heathrow Airport Ltd. confirmed the project would not be expected to be complete until the next decade. Once complete the terminal will have a footprint and operational capacity very similar to that of Terminal 5. Phase 1 was once expected to be completed in 2012, in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but as construction started much later than proposed it only opened in June 2014. By January 2013, Terminal 2A had been declared weather-tight and the internal fit-out of the building was well under way. In spring 2013 systems installation commenced. The first phase of Terminal 2B was completed in November 2009 and its six gates became operational in early 2010. Until Terminal 2 was completed, passengers accessed the first part of Terminal 2B via a temporary "bridge" from Terminal 1. Demolition of the original airport control tower which formed part of the Central Terminal Area of the airport began in January 2013 and was completed in autumn 2013, to make way for connecting roads that have been built to link with the new Terminal 2. Air traffic control operations had moved to a new control tower in 2007 but part of the building remained in use as office space. In June 2013 it was announced that the terminal would be known as "Terminal 2 – The Queen's Terminal". The terminal features a sculpture designed by Richard Wilson, called Slipstream. It has been designed to resemble a stunt aircraft in flight, and has been described as the longest permanent sculpture in Europe. A second sculpture, named Emergence, was created by Cinimod Studio and is suspended within the terminal.

Opening

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Heathrow Terminal 2

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Heathrow Terminal 2 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Heathrow Terminal 2 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Heathrow Terminal 2 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Heathrow Terminal 2

In research: Heathrow Terminal 2 appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Heathrow Terminal 2 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Heathrow Terminal 2 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2014 establishments in England, Airport terminals, Buildings and structures at Heathrow Airport, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Heathrow Terminal 2 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Heathrow Terminal 2 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Heathrow Terminal 2 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Heathrow Terminal 2 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Heathrow Terminal 2 in simple terms?

Why does Heathrow Terminal 2 matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Heathrow Terminal 2?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Heathrow Terminal 2.