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The Water Jetting Association (WJA) has authorised the resumption of face to face water jetting training after a suspension of over three months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The WJA, responsible for most water jetting training carried out in the UK, has also authorised greater use of online training, where appropriate.

Water jetting is an increasingly important industrial process for cleaning, defouling, surface preparation, pipe unblocking, material cutting and hydrodemolition.

By Emma Ryde, Rittal’s Product Manager Industrial & Outdoor Enclosures

Food and beverage manufacturers of all sizes are facing huge operational challenges right now.

Sudden increases in consumer demand, shifting expectations, changes in food safety legislation, and emerging technologies, all require companies to be responsive, agile and flexible. There is also the matter of ensuring seamless production continuity, to ensure consumer confidence around maintaining food and beverage supplies.

The Challenge

Marshall Tufflex is a manufacturing company, based in East Sussex, that produces PVC trunking, cable trays and a range of other products for the construction industry.

It was proposed that an area within the factory floor, currently used as a workshop, could be re-purposed as a space for a compact IT computing system that would run the factory’s automated machinery.

When developing the new NUVO-8208GC computer platform, three priorities were set: top equipment flexibility with a focus on support by two 250W NVIDIA graphics cards, safe in-vehicle operation and robust ergonomic design in accordance with industrial standards.

The high-end computer, which is now available from Acceed with several design combinations, is the first industrial dual GPU platform worldwide which has been specifically developed for supporting two high-end graphics cards with 250W, thus providing the gigantic GPU performance of up to 28 TeraFLOPS (benchmarking with FP32). Possible areas of use include GPU-accelerated simulation applications, virtual reality, optical in-line manufacturing inspection or autonomous driving.

Field service technicians can benefit from a new app that calculates the liquid level in fire extinguishers. Using knowledge of the fill weight, the app indicates the fill level of liquid CO2 in the cylinder so that technicians can easily locate the exact liquid/gas boundary using a level checking device.

The level checking device could be a temperature sensing strip for example or an ultrasonic liquid level indicator like the Link Instruments’ ULLC2001.

RJ Hall Engineering, a fabricated metal products business based at Walkerburn in the Scottish Borders, has become the latest company to sing the praises of Vert Technologies’ innovative compressors.

The family-owned business plays a key role across the UK in supporting the field-based forestry equipment which cuts, strips and prepares logs for the sawmill. These are huge machines that cannot be easily transported to a workshop when mechanical problems arise. 

Oxford YASA Motors, a company created to commercialise the revolutionary YASA motor developed by Oxford University’s Energy and Power Group, is finding that a TorqSense non-contact speed and torque sensor from Sensor Technology is an invaluable aid in the refinement of its world-leading motor designs. Used in a test rig to evaluate prototype motors, the sensor provides accurate and dependable real time information in a readily accessible format.

Oxford YASA Motors is engaged in the development and manufacture of a new type of axial flux motor that features Yokeless And Segmented Armature (YASA) topology. Compared with conventional axial flux motors, the new YASA types offer a step-change improvement in torque density, making them ideal for applications such as electric vehicles where the highest possible torque-to-weight ratio is a key requirement.

To suit every individual application, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies can offer bespoke flange seals that meet the highest standards in hygiene. 

Developed for customer-specific sealing grooves in the food, beverage, pharmaceutical and chemical industries, the customised flange seals are available via authorised distributor Dichtomatik Ltd, the exclusive provider for Freudenberg’s food and beverage related products in the UK.

Mobile GIS Services (MGISS) has released a new toolkit specifically designed to help highways contractors adopt new Highways England standards.

As part of the new Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) – the ‘highways bible’ – the requirement to manage drainage asset data and conduct specialist drainage surveys has changed. Designed to improve asset management, highways maintenance and reduce the risk of flooding and pollution, the new MGISS toolkit uses mobile devices running advanced mapping software to improve the planning of inspections, automate the collection of site data and facilitate the organisation wide use of drainage asset data.

SMGlobal has released FastMaint CMMS software v.11. It is a computerized maintenance management software program for equipment and facilities maintenance.

Maintenance managers can use FastMaint to schedule and manage preventive maintenance as well as corrective maintenance work. They can send work orders to the maintenance staff and receive their feedback. Managers can track the progress of all outstanding and completed jobs. They can use FastMaint for on-site maintenance programs or field service management.