Hasco-Thermic Ltd, a front runner in the supply, design and manufacture of hot-dip galvanizing plants with over 40 years’ experience, will be showcasing highlights of its recent innovations, research and development programme at Intergalva 2015. As part of B.E. Wedge Holdings Ltd, the holding company for leading galvanizing businesses in the UK, Europe and the USA, Hasco-Thermic offers a flexible approach to meeting the needs of customers with the galvanizing industry.
Capitalising on a solid investment programme, Hasco-Thermic is able to retain its key market position, as a premier supplier, by keeping abreast of advancements in new technology, research and development. The company has, for example, completed two Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) projects with Sheffield University, both related to combustion engineering. One of them was awarded the highest possible accreditation of ‘Outstanding’ by the independent KTP assessment panel.
A third KTP is underway with a focus on advanced technology in the specialised field of galvanizing furnace design. Angela Curtis, Managing Director at Hasco-Thermic explains, “The results of the investigations undertaken in partnership with the University, which is a world leader in this field, have been instrumental in advancing our thinking on improving the performance and energy efficiency of the company’s products. In addition to the KTP’s direct benefit to us,” she added, “we perceive great value in the opportunity to work closely with the experts in Sheffield because it encourages us to think even more widely and perceive further possibilities of advancement. We are great supporters of KTPs.”
Inverters
Look out for the paper by Warren Bulger, Director of Engineering for Wedge Group Galvanizing Ltd at Intergalva 2015 on Wedge’s experience of using inverters or variable speed drives on galvanizing plant equipment. He demonstrates savings in electrical power consumption of around 52%. We have installed over 60 inverters now, either to new equipment or retrofitted to existing equipment. Other advantages include; improved gas consumption, limitation of wear and tear of the fans and reduction in noise pollution.
Remote Monitoring…safely
Visit our stand to see our remote monitoring solution and what our engineers would see when offering technical support remotely. Our remote solution also features a customised webpage built by our engineer which will allow you to remotely browse your system via the internet on your laptop, iPad or smart phone, allowing the furnace status and production data to be remotely monitored for management and maintenance purposes without disturbing panel operation on site. Our system allows safe access for monitoring purposes only and not control. The advantages of this include improved safety and increased independence.
Thermal Measurement Solution
Benefiting from the latest contactless temperature measurement technology, our contactless thermal measurement solution has been used for Hasco service and design engineers to diagnose thermal problems in furnace operation and galvanizing production, hence improve the design accordingly. This solution also provides a useful tool to help Hasco R&D team in our investigation into heat transfer and fluid dynamics in furnaces in terms of difference combustion schemes and furnace layout designs.
Computer Aided Engineering
Computer Aided engineering (CAE) has been utilised to assist our engineers in galvanizing combustion system design and guide galvanizers to make well-informed decisions on managing their production.
Thanks to the increasing computational resources from our R&D partner, the University of Sheffield, and also the advance in fluid dynamic simulation techniques, our effort in computer simulation has paid off in our furnace design. The results also enable us to achieve a more in-depth understanding on the physics in a furnace. We also developed a novel method to simulate the dynamic kettle wear process over the service life a kettle using FEA (finite element analysis).
The conference session on Wednesday afternoon at Intergalva 2015 includes more details on this topic to be presented by Dr Xinyi Liu. Meanwhile, our in-house galvanizing equipment design software has been developed and is under continuous update to assist our design engineers to achieve customized furnace combustion system design as well as optimised plant thermal efficiency.
On a final note, customer service starts from the very first enquiry and continues through the life of the equipment. Our range of services include:
• Plant Design with a view to Optimising Production.
• High-velocity furnaces
• ‘W. Pilling’ kettles, kettle inspections and pump-overs
• Fume Extraction Systems
•Pre-Heaters/Driers
• Heat Recovery & Tank Heating Systems
• Equipment that complies with current European Legislation
• Assistance in sourcing a wide ancillary product range
• Skilled and experienced engineers; support is available 24hrs and day, 365 days of the year
• Performance guarantees which reflect our confidence in our systems
• Flexibility in our approach where we design to meet the customer’s requirements.
For further information see www.hasco.co.uk.
