The latest Flow of Fluids software is used by designers and operators to visualise their systems, calculate system operations, communicate the design with others and access supporting documents

The newest version of Flow of Fluids software has been released today. Flow of Fluids Premium version 2007 software simulates the operation of small piping systems, and is the companion software to the Crane Technical Paper 410. The newly released version contains significant improvements from its last release, Flow of Fluids Premium version 2005.

'If the Crane TP410 is the quintessential guide for understanding flow of fluids through pipes, valves and fittings, then Flow of Fluids Premium Software is your way of designing, simulating and visualising the whole system,' said Ray Hardee, PE and Chief Engineer at Engineered Software.

Flow of Fluids Premium calculates results for series, branching and looped systems, whether opened or closed, for up to 25 pipelines.

The programme boasts the ability to select pumps directly from more than 85 manufacturers' supplied electronic pump catalogs.

The newest features include key enhancements to new visual features such as, the option of creating piping system models as a 2-D or isometric drawing and a new Shape Editor where users can create custom shapes for pumps, tanks, components and control valves.

Other new capabilities include the ability to copy and paste between piping system models, size a flow meter or balancing orifice and insert it into the piping system in a single step, view results instantly using the new AutoCalc feature.

Users can also customize their results on the FLO-Sheet and fly-by viewer, or change the system's fluid properties in a lineup.

'When designing our software, we strive to provide users with customising opportunities so their systems can be as accurate as possible while making their jobs easier,' Hardee added: 'Flow of Fluids Premium is perfect for creating a professional looking presentation of your piping systems'.

Flow of Fluids software is used by designers and operators to gain a clear picture of their fluid piping systems.

The programme allows users to visualize their systems in a familiar format, calculate system operations, easily communicate the design with others and access supporting documents in electronic format.

"Time is of the essence" in establishing new biotech or pharma production: NNE has developed a "Modular" approach to plant construction, that has been shown to reduce overall construction timescales.

"Time is of the essence" in establishing new biotech or pharma production. Novo Nordisk Engineering (NNE) has developed a "Modular" approach to plant construction, that has been shown to reduce overall construction timescales. NNE uses multiple vendors to produce plant modules, effectively skid mounted equipment, and integrates these on site, to achieve an overall fast-track project.

Ole Abildgaard, a Batch Process Automation Specialist at NNE in Denmark will describe the success of these techniques, using contractors spread across five countries, to the Manufacturing Excellence Ireland conference on "Automation and Asset Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry", scheduled for October 22-23 in Cork, Ireland.

His presentation will give experience from completion of the NovoSeven production plant in Hillerod in Denmark, and will describe the NNE approach that meets the challenges of this approach, including the overall consolidation that integrates the modules into a validated production unit.

NNE describes this technology as "Unique Know-How", and is using the approach on several further commercial fast-track plant construction projects.

Ole Abildgaard, a Batch Process Automation Specialist with NNE A/S, is based in Denmark, and has an MS in electrical engineering plus a PhD in advanced control from the Technical University of Denmark.

He has worked for Novo Nordisk Engineering as project engineer on life science and biotech projects since 1997.

Before then he worked on process control and optimisation in the Danish steel industry.

Dust Extraction International has expanded its national sales force with the appointment of Gareth Hine as Sales Manager for the Midlands and South of England regions.

Dust Extraction International has expanded its national sales force with the appointment of Gareth Hine as Sales Manager for the Midlands and South of England regions. Gareth, 31, from Cannock in Staffordshire joins Dust Extraction from a national sales position within the industry and replaces Barry Sayers who retires from the company after 25 years service. Gareth will work from his home in Cannock and will cover a wide geographic area from Mid-Wales, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire right down to the south coast.

Around 30 per cent of the company turnover is generated from work with clients based in this part of the UK.

Gareth will work to enhance Dust Extraction International business with existing clients as well as to promote its services to new contacts.

Offering a bespoke service to meet the specific needs of each client, Dust Extraction International manufactures, supplies and manages dust control solutions for a range of businesses across many industry sectors.

Recent projects include work for Alstec Systems Technology to supply the Ho Ping Power Station in Taiwan with a complete dust control and centralised vacuum cleaning operation.

Arc Energy Resources, a specialist in corrosion and wear resistant weld overlay cladding for the oil and gas, petrochemical and process industries, has completed a refit of all their workstations.

Arc Energy Resources, a specialist in corrosion and wear resistant weld overlay cladding for the oil and gas, petrochemical and process industries, is completing a comprehensive refit of the workstations at its Gloucestershire factory. Managing Director Alan Robinson says new state-of-the-art control systems designed to suit the very specialised company requirements, will effectively increase capacity by 25 percent whilst providing the flexibility to handle a wider variety of projects. "The new Arc Energy designed control systems have significantly improved efficiency", he says, adding that "this will help to make weld overlay cladding economically viable for many industries outside the traditional oil and gas sector".

More precise control also allows weld deposits to be laid to much finer tolerances and positioned with greater accuracy.

"The smoother finish limits the amount of alloy used and reduces the post weld machining time - which means a double saving for customers", explains Robinson.

Arc Energy is able to clad components of up to twelve tonnes, even in areas of restricted access such as bores as small as 20mm diameter.

At the other extreme, units as large as four metres in diameter can be handled.

The factory is also equipped with a 15-tonne gantry crane and work is manipulated on positioners and rolls with capacities from 1-12 tonnes.

The Arc Energy weld overlay cladding service provides heavy-duty protection against corrosion and wear for a wide range of process plant and pipeline equipment, and offers significant savings when compared to manufacturing from solid corrosion resistant or wear resistant alloys.

It is specified in many industries to increase the life of new components, and refurbish and extend the life of worn parts.

Sensor Products introduces the Topaq Advanced Imaging System, providing a unique perspective of the distribution and actual magnitude of stress between any contacting or impacting surfaces


Sensor Products introduces the Topaq Advanced Imaging System. Used in conjunction with Pressurex stress indicating films, Topaq provides a unique perspective of the distribution and actual magnitude of stress between any contacting or impacting surfaces. In general, any application involving stress between two objects could benefit from Topaq capabilities.

"Measuring pressure distribution and magnitude in components, tools and machines as well as determining effective placement of strain gauges and drawing pressure in dies," said Jeffrey Stark, Senior Technical Manager, "are some of the common applications using Topaq.

Automotive components (such as gaskets), electronics packaging applications, heat sinks and PCBs lend themselves particularly well to interpretation with this unique system".

"Unlike FEA, Topaq is a post-process interpretative system that actually collects stress and force data at the interface surface," Stark commented further.

"In many instances, Topaq can be used to confirm the results of FEA analysis.

Topaq has extremely rapid response time usually requiring no more than five seconds to render an image".

Some of Topaq's features include histograms of pressure levels, enlargement and reduction, pseudo-color and 3-D viewing modes, extensive smoothing, filtering and thresholding enabling integration of total area and magnitude of force.

Surface contact area down to 3 mils as well as multiple and single regions of interest can be compared and analysed.

A line scan function allows the user to assess narrow bands of stress over unusual or intricate shapes.

Another feature called Grid-Maker applies a user designated mesh overlay to an image and quickly assimilates the statistical data for each cell into Excel format.

A bicubic interpolation algorithm allows Topaq to enlarge an image without the usual increase in graininess that normally accompanies such function.

Each image and its accompanying statistics can be saved, printed and exported for analysis in other software packages.