Process Engineering articles from October 2001

Process Engineering archives from October 2001

Funding boost for energy research.
October 1, 2001... The Carbon Trust, the body set up by the government to distribute the cash raised from the climate change levy, is offering grants of up to [pound]20 000 for research and development of energy-efficient technologies. More information is...

It's the creme de la creme.
October 1, 2001... Robert Wiseman Dairies has opened the world's largest fresh liquid milk and cream plant at Droitwich Spa near Birmingham. Occupying [230 000ft.sup.2], the dairy cost some [pound]35million to build, and has afresh milk processing capacity of...

CIA launches industry site.
October 1, 2001... The CIA has launched its educational chemical industry website, www.chemicalindustry.org.uk. The launch coincides with the start of the DfEE's Science Year.

Correction.
October 1, 2001... On page 24 of our September issue, two pictures on our maintenance products feature were transposed: the ABB picture should have illustrated the Invensys story, and vice-versa. Apologies to both companies, along with ABB, whose...

CIA announces 'best every' safety results.
October 1, 2001... The UK chemical industry has reported its best-ever safety results for 2000, with accidents causing lost working hours at an all-time low. However, there were four fatalities on chemical sites last year, and the CIA stresses that it is doing...

AstraZeneca opens R&D centre.
October 1, 2001... AstraZeneca's [pound]45million R&D site at Charnwood in Leicestershire is now operational. The plant is a process technology centre, producing supplies of potential new drugs for clinical trials, and developing large-scale manufacturing...

PICME picks up.
October 1, 2001... The Process Industry Centre for Manufacturing Excellence has established two new offices in response to fast-growing demand for its services. The company has now astabilised offices in the Northwest and in South Wales, in addition to its...

BOC promotes supercritical waste process.
October 1, 2001... BOC and Swedish firm Chematur Engineering are joining forces to promote the use of supercritical water oxidation for environmental applications. The five-year agreement will see the firms collaborating on product development, sales and...

New board to regulate UK engineering.
October 1, 2001... The Engineering Council has backed plans for an Engineering and Technology Board and new regulatory body [ETB/NRB] to regulate the engineering profession. The new body could be formed as early as next year. The ETB will mainly comprise...

HSC aims to cut injuries.
October 1, 2001... The Health and Safety Commission is aiming to reduce dramatically the number of working days lost through injuries and ill-health. In its Strategic Plan for 2001/4, it sets out targets for improving safety at work by focusing on a series of...

Blessed are the cheesemakers.
October 1, 2001... ... as Monty Python once said. The vats shown here are part of a new installation for making goats' cheese at the Cricketer Farms Dairy in Somerset. Supplied by Tetra Tabel, the three Mark V CH vats each have a capacity of 17 500litres. Inside,...

Sellafield MOX plant is given go-ahead.
October 1, 2001... The government has given BNFL approval for the Sellafield mixed-oxide (MOX) plant to start producing nuclear fuel. The plant will convert plutonium separated out during spent fuel reprocessing into mixed-oxide material.

PB process is worth its salt.
October 1, 2001... The Engineering Council has awarded its British Energy Trophy for sustainable engineering to PB Power of Manchester for a drain cooling system, which makes thermal desalination plants more efficient. The process cools hot brine concentrate with...

Kletz cheers milestone sale.
October 1, 2001... Safety guru Trevor Kletz is celebrating the news that over 50 000 copies of his books have been sold around the world. His best-known text, An engineer's view of human error, was recently republished in an updated third edition.

BASF boosts plastic capacity.
October 1, 2001... BASF is to almost double its capacity for high-temperature resistant plastics based on polysulphone and polysulphone ether. The new capacity, taking the total to 5000tpa, will come on-stream next autumn. The plastics are used in car engines,...

Shell picks GTL contractor team.
October 1, 2001... Kellogg Brown and Root and JGC Corp are to join forces to design Shell Gas & Power's first large-scale gas to liquids (GTL) plant. The Anglo-Dutch giant has a proprietary GTL process, known as the Shell Middle Distillates Synthesis (SMDS)...

Rotork achieves safety standard.
October 1, 2001... Rotork Control and Safety has become the first UK company to achieve compliance with IEC 61508, the international standard for safety in electrical and electronic safety systems, after an independent audit by SIRA (see p21). 'This certification...

Kvaerner proposes refinancing.
October 1, 2001... The troubled Anglo-Norwegian engineering group Kvaerner is proposing an equity issue as part of its refinancing procedure, to raise between NKr1.5billion-2billion. The move will 'facilitate a possible split of the group', the company says,...

Foster Wheeler wins Swedish order.
October 1, 2001... Foster Wheeler Energy has been awarded a contract for a $34million project at Preem Raffinaderi's refinery in Gothenburg, Sweden. The contract covers the engineering and procurement phase of the project. The project will debottleneck the...

Krohne correction.
October 1, 2001... The picture to the left should have illustrated the story on p45 of our September issue. The story covered Foster Wheeler's order of Krohne ultrasonic flowmeters to control off-sites blending processes at Esso's Fawley refinery near...

UK AND INTERNATIONAL PLANT COST INDICES.
October 1, 2001... Process Engineering's PREDICT plant cost index for the UK is made up of five components covering mechanical [I.sub.M], electrical [I.sub.E], civil engineering [I.sub.C], site engineering [I.sub.S], and project overheads [I.sub.O]. These are now...

Hygienic fillings designed to highest standards for food.
October 1, 2001... Bourdon-Haenni--a new company formed by the merger of Bourdon Sedeme, Haenni Instruments and Kamstrup Process -- has introduced its In-Line system of sensor fittings for hygienic pipelines in the food processing industry. Easily welded...

Jet pumps overcome effluent problems.
October 1, 2001... Although simple in operation, the traditional jet pump -- usually powered by high velocity steam passing through an ejector nozzle to draw in process gasses -- can create an effluent and disposal problem as the steam mixes with the process...

Pump installation made easy.
October 1, 2001... System PMI from ABS Pumps is a novel attempt at overcoming the installation and alignment problems faced by pump installers. The concept is simple -- the pump and motor are mounted on one single, heavy concrete base plate, but this plate is not...

Signal conditioning in the modern way.
October 1, 2001... Signal conditioners are often viewed by our competitors as simple devices not worthy of significant development,' says Brian Turner, md of Status Instruments, whose new MEDACS 2000 series of DIN-rail mounted conditioners boast many new...

Turning the CCL to an advantage.
October 1, 2001... Electric motor supplier Baldor has introduced a scheme that it says turns the penalty of the Climate Change Levy into a business advantage. Users can now replace old electric motors with new premium efficiency ones, but pay for them from their...

TM Automation.
October 1, 2001... Also of interest to companies affected by the CCL will be Toshiba's new VFP7 range of drives for fan and pump duties. Available from strategic partner TM Automation, the drives have 15 preset speeds to enable fan or pump profiles to be set...

Questions of location prove hard to answer.
October 1, 2001... The explosion has raised another debate, which is likely to prove even more contentious: the question of whether plants producing potentially hazardous materials should be sited near to residential areas. The week after the explosion,...

Hard questions follow on the heels of Toulouse blast.
October 1, 2001... Stuart Nathan reports on the aftermath of the massive explosion at Grande Paroisse's ammonium nitrate plant, and its implications It was perhaps inevitable that the atrocities of 11th September in New York and Washington would overshadow...

The chemical industry faces a new, and uncertain, world.
October 1, 2001... 'The events in France and the US are raising questions which the industry is not equipped to answer' It seems a rather unfortunate phrase at the moment, but Ludwigshafen is a Mecca for chemical journalists. BASF's Rhineland headquarters is...

Sensors not to be sniffed at.
October 1, 2001... A real-time monitoring system for gases and water could become an important tool in protecting water supplies, according to the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Dubbed an 'electronic sniffer', the device can detect contaminants in...

Eliminate nitrates.
October 1, 2001... A process known as 'Eliminate', which reduces nitrate levels in water without generating more, potentially harmful, chemicals, is to enter use at Yorkshire Water's treatment plants. Based around an ion exchange system, the process replaces...

Prehistoric hydrogen factories.
October 1, 2001... Survivors from the earliest phases of life on Earth are inspiring new methods for producing hydrogen from cheap organic acids, The research, which aims to mimic bacteria that manufacture hydrogen gas, could help bring clean fuel cell-powered...

Barcodes get a shrinking feeling.
October 1, 2001... Barcodes are ubiquitous these days, from the supermarket to the chemical plant. But now, barcodes are being shrunk to microscopic size, and may be used in drug discovery. Researchers from Penn State University have found a method to...

Bubbles bring water problems.
October 1, 2001... Research carried out by a US graduate student has identified that air bubbles can cause serious problems in water treatment plants. PhD candidate Paolo Scardina at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, has found that bubbles can allow...

Sterling service for float glass production plant.
October 1, 2001... Glass manufacturer Pilkington has specified four Sterling SPP l0in Hydrostream pumps for a vital part of its latest float glass production plant now nearing completion at Freyming-Merlebach, near Metz in France. The 700 tonne/day plant has...

Integrated solution for Farley.
October 1, 2001... Baby-food manufacturer Farley Health Products simplified the automation of a dry and liquid ingredients handling and processing system at its Kendal, Cumbria, plant by calling in a single supplier, NEU International. Replacing the manual...

Helping Shell get its ACT together.
October 1, 2001... When Shell Expro was about to start commissioning an additional compression train (ACT) on its North Sea Brent Alpha platform, it discovered a problem with level transmitters on the knockout vessels used to dry gas prior to compression. ...

Galvanising the coating industry to better ways.
October 1, 2001... A new closed-cycle galvanising process, which has been given its first UK airing at Forfar Galvanisers in Scotland, has cut zinc consumption by up to 30 per cent, reduced the use of chemicals and is saving more than [pound]3000 a month in waste...

Maintaining boiler safety at power plant.
October 1, 2001... Several ASME Section 1 safety valves from Tyco Valves & Controls are providing overpressure protection at the Sutton Bridge Power plant in Lincolnshire. A joint venture between London Power and Electricite de France, Sutton Bridge is a...

3D Modelling fosters collaboration.
October 1, 2001... Using 3D modelling for plant design can bring different disciplines together as part of a collaborative team effort, as contractor AMEC found on a recent plant expansion project By AMEC's standards, it was a medium-sized project. An...

Setting a new standard for Process Safety.
October 1, 2001... Safety is a priority for the process industries, as Sira's reminds us in this update on the new IEC 61508 international standard for safety-related systems Working in a safe environment is something many people take for granted. However,...

FPL help protect the environment.
October 1, 2001... When Sutton & Son (St Helens) Ltd were looking for a mobile pump to fit on their Emergency Response Units, following a successful trial, they settled on the 'Chemflo' all PTFE Double Diaphragm pump from Flotronic Pumps Limited. Sutton &...

Reflection Flotronic Pumps.
October 1, 2001... Schefenacker Vision Systems UK Ltd, a major producer of car door mirrors, have improved their Paint Kitchen operation and standardised on Flotronic Pumps, after successfully trialling an FPL 'One Nut' Double Diaphragm pump. Schefenacker...

Award winning pumps in the sun.
October 1, 2001... Sunjuice Ltd, part of the Jamaica Producers Group, is the European market leader in freshly squeezed Juices, Crushes and Smoothies. Essential to their success has been the importance of supplying the freshest and finest fruit juice on the...

CRITICAL FACTORS IN LOAD CELL DESIGN.
October 1, 2001... The use of strain gauge based load cells in a wide range of process applications has grown steadily in recent years. Indeed, non-contact load cells are rapidly becoming the preferred choice of sensor in many areas, including weight monitoring,...

CheWeigh offers European compliance without overfilling.
October 1, 2001... CheWeigh, a new checkweighing software suite from QISoft, ensures that food manufacturers, processors and packers can comply with European weights and measures legislation without having to resort to overfilling. The system collects...

Kistler Morse stays clean.
October 1, 2001... Designed specifically for sanitary tanks and vessels, Kistler Morse's LD360 range of load cells incorporates features to ensure that it is easy to clean and resistant to bacterial build-up. It has a sealed NEMA-6P watertight cable system -- a...

Miniature weighing.
October 1, 2001... Variohm's miniature tension loadcell is designed for measuring tension in chains and cables, testing the strength of soldered or welded joints, and monitoring the force required to disconnect electrical plugs and sockets. Built around a...

Off-the-shelf pays dividends.
October 1, 2001... Weighing specialist Rospen's decision to break with the exclusive use of in-house process control systems is paying off, the company says. The company was among the first in the UK to supply an industry-standard range of PLCs or PC-based...

Weight watchers.
October 1, 2001... A new design of Batch Weighing System has been added to the BMH Chronos Richardson product portfolio to meet the higher throughput and accuracy requirements that are often encountered with precision batching applications. The combination...

Data access.
October 1, 2001... Schneider Electric's ISP Plus weighing module has been integrated into Momentum remote I/O, as well as the Modicon TSX Premium range of PLCs. This should eliminate interface problems which some customers had experienced when integrating...

Rice work.
October 1, 2001... Awkward problems crop up frequently in food processing. How, for example, do you make sure that exactly the right amount of sultanas go into tins of rice pudding? This was the question that faces Rospen Industries at the Associated...

Precia-Molen streamlines London waste facilities.
October 1, 2001... Domestic and trade waste sites near the Thames have had heir weighing and administration operations linked into a single network using software and weighing systems supplied by Precia-Molen GeneSYS. The new integrated system makes management...

Bright idea for paint plant.
October 1, 2001... Yorkshire-based paint producer SigmaKalon has turned to Thames Side-Maywood to supply load cells to help control its manufacturing processes. Accurate control of colour and chemical composition is vital for paint manufacture, and loadcells...

B2B EXCHANGES.
October 1, 2001... The dot.com bubble might have burst, but Neil McPhater argues the case for the future of online business-to business exchanges for the process industries The expansion of trade brought about by the railway revolution of the 19th century is...

RECORD MAKERS.
October 1, 2001... Pharmaceutical companies are always struggling to keep pace with regulations, and the FDA'S latest edict on records stored electronically could prove troublesome. Sarah Houlton reports on how software companies are assisting with compliance ...

THE IT ROUTE TO MATERIAL CONFORMANCE.
October 1, 2001... In manufacturing, information adds value but can also add to cost and create masses of documentation. Tim Perris explains how a textile company found that an IT-based solution to its process monitoring, control and certifying conformance...

Collaboration and computers.
October 1, 2001... The Computers in Manufacturing (CIM) 2001 exhibition returns to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham from 30 October -- 1 November with a host of features to help visitors maximise the potential of IT in their businesses. 'CIM 2001 will...

Can scan.
October 1, 2001... Intellident will be demonstrating its radio-frequency identification (REID) MultiScanner on stand 546 at CIM. The company has many years' experience in product tracking and asset management systems, and is offering high-frequency radio tag...

Lean manufacturing system.
October 1, 2001... K3 Business technology Group is using CIM to launch its lean manufacturing initiative, and will be running a briefing on the subject on 30 October at 9.30am. K3 is focused on the delivery of supply chain management software solutions and...

Manusoft offers free trial of DRC.
October 1, 2001... The CIM show provides the first chance for manufacturers to take a close look at manusoft's Dynamic Resources Control (DRC) software, which was launched in the UK in April. The company is offersing free trails of the softwart, which can be used...

Fastest matrix printer debuts.
October 1, 2001... The world's fastest line matrix printer for industrial applications will be on display at stand 440 at the NEC. Printronix, the printer's manufacturer, says that the unit is capable of printing at 2000 lines per minute. The P5220 printer...

Visualise Lilly ERP.
October 1, 2001... Lilly Software is showing two of its recently introduced tools on stand 416 at CIM -- a customer relationship management module, Visual CRM, and a quality management module, Visual Quality. Both are add-ons to Visual Manufacturing (VM), Lilly's...

Faster 3D design with iceCAD.
October 1, 2001... Design presentation software iceCAD has its first public airing at stand 1146 at CIM. The system, a tool for converting standard CAD designs into interactive 3D models, is billed as 'fast, portable and easy to use.' IceCAD--the 'ice'...

Menecaptus keeps in touch.
October 1, 2001... A range of new technology on display at Menecaptus' stand, 602, aims to make using computers an easier, more intuitive task. Light pens and touch screens will be featured prominently on the stand. The newest addition to the company's light...

Smart solutions for commerce.
October 1, 2001... SmarTeam will be exhibiting on Autodesk's stand at CIM to launch SmartBriefcase, a Web-based family of collaborative product commerce solutions. The system allows users to exchange product design data through email, or via web pages, using a...

Screen grab.
October 1, 2001... QCL's stand at CIM, 840, will be showing a range of desktop and panel PCs suitable for both machine and process control. The company has one of the largest ranges in Europe, including equipment suitable for panel mounting, desktop, wall...

Managing documents.
October 1, 2001... Documents management specialist FormScape is to release a new version of its DocsOnline package at CIM. The package allows users to access business documents created anywhere on their organisation using standard browser software. The...

Pinch analysis goes online.
October 1, 2001... Following an agreement with Texas-based service provider WaveOne.com, pinch analysis specialist Linnhoff March has made its utility system software products available online. There are three products involved: ProSteam, used for steam...

Making better use of simulation.
October 1, 2001... HX-Net 5.0, the latest software package from AEA Technology's Hyprotech subsidiary, enables process engineers to extract more information from process simulations. In particular it allows them to assess the potential for energy efficiencies....

More links from plant to business.
October 1, 2001... The Wonderware arm of the Invensys software systems division has launched its new 'collaborative asset optimisation' solution (cAO). The company says this asset management initiative is 'designed specifically to help enterprises leverage...

Aspen allies with Accenture.
October 1, 2001... Aspen Technology and Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting) have announced a marketing and implementation services agreement that will offer 'enterprise-wide supply chain and manufacturing solutions'. Accenture will work closely with...

Intellution helps fix it for Lego.
October 1, 2001... As its main manufacturing plant in Billund, Denmark, the world famous toy producer Lego turns out an amazing 1.1 million pieces per hour from a total of 739 plastics moulding machines. In all, some 42 million bags and eight million boxes are...