Equinor is introducing autonomous ATEX-certified robots on their oil and gas installations. Partner in the project is inspection robotics specialist Taurob of Austria. Its robot will be used to conduct routine inspection and maintenance tasks on offshore installations.

Thorough certification

Taurob started developing robotics applied for human safety, particularly in emergency response situations, 11 years ago. Safety is also the main driver for the energy domain to step into robotics. The state-of-the-art ‘Taurob Inspector’ is the result of an intensive 2-year collaboration between Taurob, French energy giant Total and UK’s OGTC. Total was the first energy major to implement robotic inspection on their plant in the North Sea’s Shetland Islands. Matthias Biegl, Managing Director and co-founder of Taurob, emphasizes his company’s focus on safety: “Our goal is to build trust with operators and raise acceptance on site. Going through thorough certification procedures with the customers and their HSEQ and Electrical departments is as important as the development process itself.”

Global occupational health and workplace hazard monitoring expert Casella has announced its schedule of industry leading webinars for 2021. The schedule of free to attend, virtually accessible webinars covers Casella’s areas of core competency, including workplace monitoring for dust, gas and vapour hazards, as well as instrumentation usage and best practice.

The sessions will also cover monitoring for Hand Arm Vibration (HAV) and sampling for asbestos. In order to reach worldwide attendees, two sessions will be run on each date, with one taking place at 10am and a later session at 3pm to ensure learners across multiple time zones can benefit. Each webinar will conclude with a Q&A session to recap. 

North Ridge pumps are proud to announce the release of the AMP16 Control - an Intelligently controlled Peristaltic Metering pump with built in variable frequency drive (vfd).

Its unique design enables the precise metering of gaseous, viscous, and shear-sensitive media, containing particles with ease without the use of valves, or seals prone to blockage and wear. 

Its simple design - containing a single hose and two rollers spaced at 180° intervals minimises the amount of spares required on stock, as well as the time required for maintenance which can be performed by a single operator. As the pump head rotates, the rollers compress the hose moving fluid from the inlet towards the outlet. Such design ensures full containment of the process fluid, as well as being reversible incase fluid recovery is required. 

As the UK emerges from lockdown, a leading ventilation specialist is accelerating calls for a clearer definition of ‘fresh air’, in order to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) in our public buildings.

With the closing down of many public spaces as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, focus on the air we breathe and the need to improve it has increased. As many ventilation strategies are built around the delivery of ‘fresh air’ into a building, Elta Group is highlighting the lack of clarity surrounding its definition. 

David Millward, Group Product Manager at Elta Group, comments: “Simply defining ‘fresh air’ as allowing outside air to circulate inside does not go far enough, as the quality is not always sufficient, nor is it immediately controllable. This can be particularly problematic in urban areas, where high levels of pollution mean that natural ventilation, such as opening a window, can bring harmful pollutants into the building.”

Partnership unlocks real-time asset condition monitoring possibilities

Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) platform provider Ultimo and Asset Performance Management (APM) specialist UReason integrate functionalities to provide real-time asset condition monitoring. UReason is a software company that supports both asset owners and equipment vendors (OEMs) with real-time condition monitoring and predictive and prescriptive maintenance. Ultimo’s EAM cloud platform helps customers increase asset availability and optimise productivity and safety. By combining the data of both platforms, unplanned downtime of assets is eliminated.

UReason’s APM Studio offers the possibility to use condition-based maintenance to ensure asset reliability, worker safety, costs reduction and high asset performance. Ultimo users can now connect to UReason’s APM Studio to add real-time condition monitoring and predictive maintenance capabilities to their assets. Data from the field and derived data can be integrated seamlessly from APM Studio to Ultimo using the Ultimo IoT connector. APM Studio can also create a work order in the Ultimo software, even before a non-conformity or failure occurs.

TÜV SÜD National Engineering Laboratory launches the UK’s first traceable hydrogen flow calibration facility for domestic gas meters.

The new facility will help meter manufacturers determine if existing meter stock, and new technologies under development, are correctly measuring hydrogen flow rates. This is a crucial step to ensure that hydrogen gas meters deployed onto the market in the future will deliver accurate measurements for customer billing and taxation purposes.

Marc MacDonald, Head of Clean Fuels at TÜV SÜD National Engineering Laboratory, said: “Accurate measurement is an essential element to enable the decarbonisation of heat via the replacement of natural gas with hydrogen in the grid. From our involvement in EU hydrogen metrology projects, and our extensive experience as the UK institute responsible for National Flow Measurement Standards, it is clear that the change from natural gas to hydrogen can result in increased meter measurement errors. Our new hydrogen calibration facility will give manufacturers the independent assurance they need to prove that metering systems are suitable for their intended service.”

Major investment in a multi-function flow test rig and extended pressure and temperature testing adds to capabilities

Hydrotechnik have unveiled a continued investment in their re-calibration department.  The addition of an oil-based flow test rig enables Hydrotechnik to offer full in-house flow meter recalibrations traceable to National Standards for oils from 10 to 100cst and flow rates from 0.05L/min up to 700L/min. The Flow Rig has 2 master flow meters giving a maximum uncertainty of +/-0.5%. Oil flow calibrations traceable to DKD (German) national standards and full DAkkS ISO17025 on request.  In Addition, Hydrotechnik UK offer Water flow calibrations from 0.05 L/min to 2000 L/min traceable to national standard or Full UKAS ISO17025 on request. 

With a requirement for new steam boilers with increased capacity, higher efficiency and more eco-friendly emissions when expanding their operations at a second facility in Romania, Universal Alloy Corporation had no hesitation in turning to heat transfer specialist Fulton, the supplier of steam boiler solutions already installed at its facilities in Romania and Vietnam.

Heat transfer specialist Fulton has supplied, assisted with installation and commissioned two gas-fired, horizontal RBC3000 steam boilers for Romania-based Universal Alloy Corporation (UAC), a manufacturer and fabricator of high-strength, hard alloy extrusions for aircraft structures or where precision-engineered products are critical. This is UAC’s second Fulton installation in Romania – at an all-new facility built to cope with increased demand from the airline industry – and third installation across its sites in Europe and Vietnam.

A bespoke, energy efficient heating and refuelling system has delivered 36MW of flexible heating for several different construction phases of the plant

ICS Cool Energy, an international market leader specializing in complete temperature control solutions for manufacturing process and facilities applications delivered a bespoke, energy efficient heating and refuelling system at an electric car manufacturing site being constructed in Germany. 

The customer required a quick and state-of-the art approach that would provide them with energy efficient heat for different construction phases. ICS Cool Energy, with one of the largest hire temperature control fleets in Europe, was able to meet all the requirements and design the most efficient heating and refuelling concept. The installed system comprises hire boilers, a fully managed fuel package, indirect diesel fired heaters and air handling units working in tandem.

The success enjoyed by Lanemark Combustion Engineering Ltd. since its formation in the early-1980’s can be attributed not only to its production and technical capabilities but also to its ongoing commitment to training and personnel development.

Jeff Foster, Sales Director at the Nuneaton-based organisation, which manufactures process gas burner systems that are used in a range of industries – from metal pretreatment and brewing to the petrochemical sector – draws attention to the benefits of this approach.