Brevini UK help solve long-term odour problem
Anyone working in the UK waste water treatment industry will be familiar with the type of problems faced by Yorkshire Water at the Saltend Waste Water Treatment Works, where long-standing issues around odours disturbed the local community, most notably during the peak load season (late June – August), when the flows into the site peak.
Announcing an investment of £30m to address these issues last October1, Yorkshire Water’s improvement works are now complete – with Brevini UK being awarded a contract which sees the Warrington-based company once more working on environmental improvements for the residents of East Yorkshire.2
Removing original drive
For this major project, Brevini were commissioned to work on the Morgan Sindall Sweco joint venture, specifically to replace the original EIMCO rake drive system in the lamella tanks – a significant part of the whole waste water treatment plant at Saltend. With a very tight timescale – Yorkshire Water set a target for major improvements to be operative for summer 2016 – Brevini had only an 8-10 week turnaround, to cover: concept, design, rapid pricing, manufacture and installation on site, for a solution that would interface with existing kit at the plant.
Brevini were ideally-placed to work on such a demanding project, both in terms of engineering expertise and the breadth of the company’s product portfolio, meaning they were able to consider a number of potential solutions, before specifying and installing the final drives.
Fitting new Brevini bridge transition pieces
As a general rule, applications in the water industry tend towards high output torque and low (or very low) output speed requirements, which make planetary drives the optimal solution. The major exceptions to this would normally be aerators and Archimedian screw drive units but, even here, a planetary solution is suitable for a large proportion of the low-medium power ranges. Brevini offer both helical and planetary gear solutions, as well as a unique hybrid gear unit – the compact Posiplan range, which features a final helical gear stage, and one or more planetary or spiral-bevel input gear stages, and the option to fit a labyrinth oilseal.
For the Saltend project, most gear unit suppliers would consider providing a simple gear unit as a replacement – particularly given the very tight turnaround from commission to completion – as this would minimise the risk of problems with specification, design and manufacture, with an in-line planetary unit seeming the most obvious selection. However, the gear unit is only a small part of the system. There would have to be an output coupling of some form, selected to transmit the output torque required, plus supporting steelwork (which would need access ports to allow bolting the coupling). Also, it is more problematic to fit a labyrinth seal to these units, and a standard oilseal could leak lubricant into the process. Given these requirements, the apparently simple planetary solution begins to look increasingly expensive.
Fitting new Brevini drive assemblies to rake-arm column
Drawing on their extensive experience in this sector, Brevini were able to offer a solution to cover all application requirements, in time and in budget. The Brevini drive arrangement was deemed to be far more efficient, generating the required output from a much smaller prime mover. The Brevini drive has an electric motor, a planetary gear unit, a final-stage slew-pinion and bearing, plus supportive steelwork. With no separate method of torque limitation or monitoring specified, Brevini proposed to utilise the motor supply current as the generator of the torque level. While this is, technically, the least accurate position, the total combined drive efficiency of 86% is an improvement over the original drive. Brevini offered this option in part due to the application requirement, where a normal torque-limiter wouldn’t have been suitable, in case the system might stall or be disengaged.
New Brevini drive assemblies fitted and running
Once Brevini’s solution was approved, the new drives were installed safely to MS2JV requirements – delivered, installed, completed and works-tested ahead of schedule. Reflecting on the project, Andrew Baggaley, Aftermarket Manager at Brevini UK, commented,
“We’re delighted with the success of this project. With an original brief that had a very tight deadline for completion, we needed to look at a novel solution for replacement and improvement of the original drives. Given the nature of the project, working with hazardous gases and other safety concerns, we worked to the highest safety standards, and the highest standards of PPE, a capability that we at Brevini are very proud of. That we were able to improve on the original specification, while still delivering ahead of schedule, is testament to the expertise of our engineers and the breadth of the range of products we have at our disposal, here at Brevini UK.”
1. https://www.yorkshirewater.com/saltend
2. https://dana-sac.co.uk/brevini-gears-up-to-protect-hull-from-flooding/
For further details about this, and other Brevini projects, please contact us:
E: [email protected]
T: 01925 636682
