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9 November, 2011
Sellafield Ltd with BHR Group and Particles CIC, University of Leeds win the IChemE’s 2011 Core Chemical Engineering Award.

 
Hugh Dennis (Presenter/Comedian), Dr Jeff Peakall (Leeds University), Cliff Birchall (Sellafield Ltd), Dr Nigel Heywood (BHR Group) & Anthony Fairhurst (Simon Carves)

On the evening of the 3rd November 2011, over 400 attendees arrived at the ICC in Birmingham for the annual IChemE awards. These awards recognise individuals as well as organisations who over the last 12 months have contributed significantly to the International Chemical and Process Engineering industry.

The project that won the IChemE 2011 Core Chemical Engineering Award, sponsored by Simon Carves, was the Development of fluidic mixers for processing intractable sludge; a collaborative exercise between Sellafield Ltd, BHR Group and the Particles CIC at the University of Leeds. BHR Group’s team consisted of Dr Hara Papachristou (Mathematical Modelling Manager), Dr Neil Alderman and Dr Nigel Heywood (Senior Rheology and Slurry Handling Consultants).

The focus of this project was to process radioactive waste sludge that needed to be treated and immobilised, but in order to do that the sludge must first be retrieved and processed. The biggest challenge posed by this project was that the environment was inaccessible and the sludge intractable, so the technology developed must work first time. This project drew on the work that has been done to sample and characterize radioactive sludge by Sellafield Ltd. This information was then combined with the rheological knowledge and numerical modelling expertise of BHR Group, and the skills Leeds University possessed in fracture mechanics and the ability to visualise fractures to gain a better understanding of the Chemical Engineering challenge.

The key areas of innovation within this project were:
 •  The ability to visualize what is happening internally within the sludge.
•  The drawing together of diverse disciplines – sedimentology, soil mechanics, rheology, modelling, chemistry, tomography, etc. to resolve a chemical engineering challenge.
 •  The demonstration that an unusual mixer can be effectively operated in an inaccessible environment to process intractable materials.




Congratulations to all the winners and nominees at the 2011 IChemE awards, as well as all the engineers who work hard every year to make their chemical and process engineering projects a success.
 
                  
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7 November, 2011
BHR Group is demonstrating Water Hydraulic Valve Actuation System at BRAU BEVIALE in Nuremberg, Germany from 9 to 11 November 2011
 
HYDRACT – The New Water Hydraulic Actuator for Process Valves. 

The new Hydract technology is set to replace pneumatics with water based hydraulics thereby reducing the energy consumption and CO2 emissions by more than 65% BHR Group, along with KM Rustfri will be exhibiting the new HYDRACT water hydraulic actuator at the major industry exhibition Brau Beviale in Nuremberg, Germany from 9 to 11 November 2011.

The revolutionary actuator, developed in corporation with Carlsberg, Denmark, has been developed specifically for process valves in the brewery, dairy and food industry the and is applicable to all types of units, including both torque and seat valves; it can even be retrofitted onto existing valves reusing the existing control interface. One of the many benefits is that it allows the customer to begin using water hydraulics with a low investment whilst simultaneously realising significantly lower operating costs and reduced production waste.

Peter Rasmussen, Carlsberg Denmark says: “Hydract is an exciting new technology setting a new standard for low energy consumption and CO2 emissions for process valves. The proven accuracy and stability is unique and open up a wide range of new possibilities for the future of breweries” The incompressibility of water versus air gives the Hydract actuator an excellent precision and reliability. The Hydract actuator can open and close independently of the valve flow direction and water hammer will not affect the valve. It can even be used as a regulating valve for the precision control of valve position, fluid temperature, pressure or flow rate. 

Low compressor efficiency and air leakage can account for more than 65 % of the energy consumption associated with pneumatic systems. Hygiene is also improved because unlike pneumatic systems Hydract does not exhaust compressed air potentially containing bacteria and oil. Hydract was developed by a European consortium of companies from 2008 to 2011. 

For more information, please contact:

Mark Fairhurst
Telephone: +44 (0)7785 621 654
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28 October, 2011
BHR Group launches next phase of £2.5m water research project

On Tuesday 25th October 2011, BHR Group launched the next phase of the industry’s Water and Wastewater Mixing Research Programme (WWM) promising quantifiable improvements in energy efficiency and reductions in chemical usage through the application of mixing technology and fluid engineering.  Key Water Industry Stakeholders supported the launch, including British Water, the industry’s trade association and voice of its members. The launch showcased how WWM had produced the BHR Sludge System Losses Tool, plus the Sludge Tank & Digester Mixing Design Guide, upgrades to the Sludge Rheology Database, successful site trials on coagulant mixers for P-removal plus a pilot scale floc strength demonstration project.  

Phase 8 will deliver minimized energy usage and reduced carbon footprint, by optimising process efficiency and minimizing chemical usage through the application of the WWM deliverables. The full WWM 8 proposal will be available from 21st November 2011 with WWM 8 set to commence 5th December 2011.

A full set of the days presentations can be downloaded now by clicking here

Please direct any enquiries to Emile Thomas, Commercial Manager, ethomas@bhrgroup.co.uk
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4 October, 2011
Call for papers now open for the 11th International Conference on Pressure Surges.
We are delighted to announce that we are currently accepting papers for our upcoming international conferences. Please click on the conferences below for more details:

11th International Conference on Pressure Surges (Lisbon, October 2012) 

8th North American Conference on Multiphase Technology (Banff, Canada  June 2012)

For more information on all all conferences and events, please visit www.bhrconferences.com
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3 October, 2011
Dispersion of nanoparticles in oil and greases.
 
The paper ‘Dispersion of high concentration nanoparticles in oils’ by E. Gavi, D. Kubicki, and G. Ozcan-Taskin will be presented during the 7th international symposium on “Fine Grinding and Dispersing” in Braunschweig, Germany (12th – 13th October 2011). This work presents selected results from the EC funded project AddNano (contract nb 229284), on the de-agglomeration process for preparing concentrated dispersions of nanoparticles in oils with the aim of developing  newly formulated products containing nanoparticles in their formulation.  Deagglomeration of different particles was carried out in three types of process equipment tested at different operating conditions and with different continuous phases. Results will be discussed in terms of the importance of processing conditions on the smallest mean aggregate size that can be attained, mechanism and kinetics of break up. 

It is shown that whilst the latter depends on processing conditions, the smallest attainable mean aggregate size and mechanism of break up are mainly determined by material properties.$0  $0 For further information on the work carried out at BHR Group in the area of Nanoparticle Dispersion, please email our commercial manager __________________________________________________________________


9 September, 2011
 DOMINO Project Meetings.

Our consortium DOMINO will held its project meetings on 15 and 16 of September. If you would like more information, please contact the Commercial Manager, or learn more on DOMINO __________________________________________________________________
 

12 August, 2011
DOMINO work. Paper accepted for publication in Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineers

The article "Power and flow characteristics of three rotor-stator heads" by Dr Gül Özcan-Taşkın, Dr Gustavo Padron and Dr Dominik Kubicki reports the findings of a part of the study aimed at investigating the flow and power characteristics in single phase to highlight the differences of three different mixer heads. Power characteristics are determined using the calorimetry allowing the characteristic power numbers for these devices to be obtained. These are also compared with CFD calculations. Flow characteristics are studied through numerical simulations. Read the article __________________________________________________________________
 

9 August, 2011
BHR Group acquired by VirtualPiE Ltd.

BHR Group Limited, the internationally recognised centre of excellence in fluid engineering has been purchased by VirtualPiE Limited, a privately owned UK based engineering services company. VirtualPiE has acquired the business name, the business rights, the goodwill, the intellectual property, the customer contracts, the facilities and rights to the historic BHR brand. The new company will trade as BHR Group, and will combine the rich knowledge base and multi-disciplinary expertise of BHR with the engineering design and development and optimisation capabilities of VirtualPiE. __________________________________________________________________


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