Q: Please briefly explain your role, involvement and experience with regards to fluid machinery and the energy sectors
John Felgate, Stiebel Eltron (JF): I work for Stiebel Eltron who manufacture heating, hot water and ventilation products. I manage the technical side of the business and I'm involved in the specification and design of systems heating and cooling systems that range from small 4kW passive house applications to large 400kW system that run factories. Although we sell a large range of products, heat pumps take up most of my time. We design systems that harvest energy from the air, rivers, the ground or even the sea.
Win Rampen, SynchroStor (WR): I have initiated and helped develop a hybrid class of hydraulic piston pumps and motors which we call Digital Displacement. They are significantly more efficient, particularly at part load and have much higher control bandwidth than conventional machines. We have made these machines with power ratings ranging from 1 kW to 7MW.
Ross Milligan, INEOS (RM): I am an Asset Mechancial Engineer, tasked with maintaining an asset care policy for a hydrocarbon tank farm. I manage the maintenance for numerous centrifugal, positive displacement and cryogenic pumps used in hydrocarbon service. These pumps are utilised to move hydrocarbons between operational factories and to onboard/offload ships.
Q: What is the top challenge facing your industry at present?
JF: Managing growth and adapting to the fluctuations we’re experiencing in the global supply chain.
WR: Making hydraulic systems more efficient and controllable so that they can help with decarbonising off-road equipment – either by reducing fuel use, or by enabling batteries to work more productively.
RM: Ageing assets: We operate numerous ‘late life assets.’ It is becoming increasingly difficult to meet/exceed industry best practices and manage this change.
Q: How would you say your industry has evolved over the past two years?
JF: The growth rate has been very steep. Government legislation, an increase in the public's awareness of environmental issues, and rising energy costs have caused a big increase in interest for heat pump technology.
WR: Previously it has been difficult to sell efficiency. This is no longer the case.
RM: The utilisation of modern communication tools (MS Teams/Zoom) has allowed a massive improvement in sharing information from remote locations in real time.
Q: What developments are going on in your industry that may have an impact on existing fluid machinery components in the future?
JF: Tricky one, but I would say a drive to increase efficiency. Components must consume less energy to perform their task without using materials that have a negative impact on the environment such as CFCs that have a high global warming potential.
WR: All sorts of components and system architectures are being re-evaluated in light of the push to decarbonise this industry. In particular throttling valves, previously used for control and very wasteful of energy, are under scrutiny.
RM: Motion Amplification: this technology is allowing the visualisation and quantification of our assets movements during operation. Determining a vibration behaviour is allowing any damaging vibrations to be engineered out.
Q: What will you be presenting at the seminar and how will this benefit participants?
JF: I will speak about the application of heat pump technology in the domestic and commercial market. I will present some ‘rules of thumb’ regarding design considerations that I hope the participants will find interesting.
WR: I will be describing work on a large compressor/expander machine – the equivalent of a Digital Displacement pump/motor, but for compressible fluid and isentropic operation. This component could find use in many process and energy applications, but doesn’t yet exist on the market.
RM: I will be presenting on our current maintenance strategies at INEOS. I will detail both success stories and what is not working. This will inform participants of the pitfalls of modern strategies and how to successfully implement change.
Q: Which other speakers and presentations are you looking forward to hearing at the forthcoming seminar?
JF: There are a few speakers who will touch on oil, gas and hydrogen systems. I’ll look forward to listening and learning how these topics will affect building services in the future.
WR: I shall be interested to learn whether our project can find a role in other applications – such as compressing and decompressing gases like hydrogen.
RM: Creating a hydrocarbon transmission network – I am interested to hear how such an ambitious plan shall be implemented.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to come together at this event and share best practice?
JF: It’s important to have the debate and to validate that we are heading in the right direction.
WR: Engineers working in different fields can spark really meaningful ideas when they get together and explore what a previously unrecognised application can do with their machine – or vice-versa.
RM: Having numerous industry leaders from various industries under one roof will allow the cross pollination of ideas and techniques. This kind of meeting allows collaboration and the development of novel ideas.
The Optimising Fluid Machinery Components for the Future Energy System seminar will be taking place on 15 November 2022 at One Birdcage Walk, London.
To book your place, please visit the event website.