No room for failure as coal-fired power station keeps working to the end
Magnom filtration units help to keep Didcot A running
The four 500MWe generating units RWE npower’s Didcot A power station began burning coal over 40 years ago in 1970. Yet the station remains in perfect working order thanks to a dedicated maintenance team that have kept all of its coal feeders, boilers and pulverisers running - with a little help from British engineers at Magnom who have eliminated much of the wear and tear on 32 vulnerable gearboxes.
Didcot A operates as an opted out station under the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD), meaning that it must close by 31 December 2015 at the latest. However, it continues to play an important role in meeting the national demand for electricity, supplying power to meet the needs of around 2 million households in the UK. Commercial logic dictates that replacement of major items of plant should be kept to a minimum, although the maintenance team still have a crucial role to play in keeping the station running smoothly and efficiently, and reducing the need for five or six new gearboxes a year to just one in the past 24 months has made a massive, immediate and welcome impact on running costs.
The gearboxes that are now protected by Magnom filters control the 32 mills that pulverise coal into a fine dust that is blown into the burners. Each mill has 20 massive steel balls weighing in at a ton each, and the gearboxes have a big job to do. Inevitably there will be some wear so that small, even microscopic, metallic parts will find their way into the lubricant where they can do a surprising amount of damage very quickly.
Having been torn from other metal parts, these contaminants will be hard and create scratches and fissures that, deceptively small as they are, soon become a focus for localised stress. The damage progresses exponentially and, as Didcot A’s maintenance team leader David Williams said; “Once the chain reaction gets a grip, a gearbox can fail very quickly, bringing the mill to a grinding halt.”
Magnom’s patented magnetic filters are easy to design in as they are simply installed in line where they do not affect fluid flow at all. Hydraulic fluids and lubricants flow unimpeded through the open core of the filtration unit, while a remarkable powerful magnetic field pulls metal contaminants out and, just as importantly, hold into it until the maintenance team are ready to clean it off. Simple magnetic filter designs start to lose their power of attraction as soon as they become coated with the
“It is good to be involved in a project that has shown such enormous returns on investment so quickly and so measurably,” said Magnom technical director Jobey Marlow. Even better, we’ve been able to achieve these results for Didcot A with standard Magnom products, and we have no doubt that we can deliver equally good results for the new generations of powergen technologies.”
ends
28 July 2011
British Engineering chosen to help greening of Chinese manufacturing
Magnom filters already fitted to 1000 injection moulding machines a month
www.magnom.com
Chinese machinery manufacturers are recognising the importance of green credentials and are emphasising energy efficiency in their sales and marketing activities. One such company is Donghua Machinery Limited (www.donghua-ml.com) in Guangdong Province, which has chosen patented filtration technology from British company Magnom to boost the green credentials and the energy efficiency of its plastic injection moulding machines. With world-wide patents in place and a customer base that now includes well-known OEMs and big names such as JCB, Rexroth, Mercury Marine the and Whayne Cat in the USA, Warwickshire-based Magnom is a company that is attracting increasing interest from investors. It’s technology is recognised as the world leader in its field.
Donghua chose Magnom filters as the preferred option for its eco-friendly and energy-saving servo driven machines. Maintaining the high flow rate of hydraulic fluid and minimising energy loss depends on effective protection of components and thus filtration of contaminants. The filters in Donghua machines therefore feature Magnom’s patented magnetic filters, which remove damaging metallic particles of all sizes down to sub-micron size.
Magnom filters are chosen by engineers world wide working on projects ranging from Formula 1 power units to domestic heating boilers, wind turbines and heavy-duty coal crushers. The unique core design of the technology ensures fluid flow through its core is unrestricted while the unique powerful magnetic field created internally surrounds the free-flowing fluid, efficiently removing aggressive sub micron metallic contaminants. www.magnom.com .
Magnom chairman Robert Spender said: “We understand that Injection moulding machine OEM's in China produce 25,000 machines per month. It’s a market with huge potential for a company like Magnom . Our patented technology delivers performance in a class of its own. It cannot be replicated, no matter how hard our rivals try.”
ends
About Magnom™ Magnom™ is a British engineering design company, based at Warwick Technology Park, which offers a solution to the cause of the majority of catastrophic failures in fluid systems by filtering out ferrous particles. These particles are the most dangerous contaminant in fluid systems, yet the failure of conventional filtration to remove them is not highlighted by traditional measuring techniques, which focus on the size of a particle and not the threat it presents to a system. While they are often microscopic and small enough to escape notice in standard filtration testing, ferrous particles are the hidden assassins of fluid systems.
Magnom’s patented technology is used to produce inexpensive filtration units, typically fitted in addition to conventional mechanical mesh filters. Magnom units have exceptionally long life and a design which enables them to capture a surprisingly large mass of ferrous material, filtering particle sizes down to 0.07µ (1µ, or micron = one millionth of a meter) , while never impeding fluid flow. This makes them suitable for cleaning fluids on the inlet suction side of pumps, so they remove particles before they enter critical system components. More detail and diagrams of the ingenious concept are available at www.magnom.com.
Magnom filtration is being used in hundreds of applications worldwide, ranging from Formula 1 cars, where absolute fluid purity is essential to avoid wear and maintain efficiency, to closed systems such domestic heating systems where Magnom™ Boiler Buddy reduces build up of ferrous material on heat exchanges and adds to overall fuel efficiency . The long life of Magnom™ filters makes them ideal for use where scheduling downtime and gaining access for major maintenance is an issue, such as offshore wind turbines and deep sea trawlers.
Magnom technology is now being adopted increasingly in OEM markets such as the production and operation of off-road vehicles and closed heating systems. These are examples of markets where improved operating efficiency, reduced downtime and reduced warranty claims can have a rapid and measurable impact on bottom line productivity. The recent (Q1 2011) agreement between Magnom™ and U.S. Caterpillar distributor Whayne Supply is an example of this sort of collaboration.
Magnom is a trademark of Magnom Corporation
Further information and high res images from: Lynne East T: +44 (0) 1273 731184 / +44 (0) 7850 965442 E:lynne.east@btinternet.com
British Engineering chosen to help greening of Chinese manufacturing
Magnom filters already fitted to 1000 injection moulding machines a month
www.magnom.com
Chinese machinery manufacturers are recognising the importance of green credentials and are emphasising energy efficiency in their sales and marketing activities. One such company is Donghua Machinery Limited (www.donghua-ml.com) in Guangdong Province, which has chosen patented filtration technology from British company Magnom to boost the green credentials and the energy efficiency of its plastic injection moulding machines. With world-wide patents in place and a customer base that now includes well-known OEMs and big names such as JCB, Rexroth, Mercury Marine the and Whayne Cat in the USA, Warwickshire-based Magnom is a company that is attracting increasing interest from investors. It’s technology is recognised as the world leader in its field.
Donghua chose Magnom filters as the preferred option for its eco-friendly and energy-saving servo driven machines. Maintaining the high flow rate of hydraulic fluid and minimising energy loss depends on effective protection of components and thus filtration of contaminants. The filters in Donghua machines therefore feature Magnom’s patented magnetic filters, which remove damaging metallic particles of all sizes down to sub-micron size.
Magnom filters are chosen by engineers world wide working on projects ranging from Formula 1 power units to domestic heating boilers, wind turbines and heavy-duty coal crushers. The unique core design of the technology ensures fluid flow through its core is unrestricted while the unique powerful magnetic field created internally surrounds the free-flowing fluid, efficiently removing aggressive sub micron metallic contaminants. www.magnom.com .
Magnom chairman Robert Spender said: “We understand that Injection moulding machine OEM's in China produce 25,000 machines per month. It’s a market with huge potential for a company like Magnom . Our patented technology delivers performance in a class of its own. It cannot be replicated, no matter how hard our rivals try.”
ends
About Magnom™ Magnom™ is a British engineering design company, based at Warwick Technology Park, which offers a solution to the cause of the majority of catastrophic failures in fluid systems by filtering out ferrous particles. These particles are the most dangerous contaminant in fluid systems, yet the failure of conventional filtration to remove them is not highlighted by traditional measuring techniques, which focus on the size of a particle and not the threat it presents to a system. While they are often microscopic and small enough to escape notice in standard filtration testing, ferrous particles are the hidden assassins of fluid systems.
Magnom’s patented technology is used to produce inexpensive filtration units, typically fitted in addition to conventional mechanical mesh filters. Magnom units have exceptionally long life and a design which enables them to capture a surprisingly large mass of ferrous material, filtering particle sizes down to 0.07µ (1µ, or micron = one millionth of a meter) , while never impeding fluid flow. This makes them suitable for cleaning fluids on the inlet suction side of pumps, so they remove particles before they enter critical system components. More detail and diagrams of the ingenious concept are available at www.magnom.com.
Magnom filtration is being used in hundreds of applications worldwide, ranging from Formula 1 cars, where absolute fluid purity is essential to avoid wear and maintain efficiency, to closed systems such domestic heating systems where Magnom™ Boiler Buddy reduces build up of ferrous material on heat exchanges and adds to overall fuel efficiency . The long life of Magnom™ filters makes them ideal for use where scheduling downtime and gaining access for major maintenance is an issue, such as offshore wind turbines and deep sea trawlers.
Magnom technology is now being adopted increasingly in OEM markets such as the production and operation of off-road vehicles and closed heating systems. These are examples of markets where improved operating efficiency, reduced downtime and reduced warranty claims can have a rapid and measurable impact on bottom line productivity. The recent (Q1 2011) agreement between Magnom™ and U.S. Caterpillar distributor Whayne Supply is an example of this sort of collaboration.
Magnom is a trademark of Magnom Corporation
Further information and high res images from: Lynne East T: +44 (0) 1273 731184 / +44 (0) 7850 965442 E:lynne.east@btinternet.com
