An Untidy Railway
I took these pictures as I returned from Eridge.
You see it all over the railways and not just in the UK; general untidiness!
When I joined ICI in 1968, I went on a thorough and excellent induction course.
One very experienced engineer, gave a Health and Safety Lecture and one thing he said, was that a neat and tidy chemical plant was less likely to have silly accidents.
Some years later, I went to the United States to see some of Metier’s clients, of whom some were nuclear power stations. This must have been just after the Three Mile Island accident, which is described like this in Wikipedia.
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI-2) in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, and subsequent radiation leak that occurred on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.
Artemis was involved in maintenance at the nuclear stations I visited. I can remember at AEP Donald C Cook nuclear station being shown a database of work to do and many of the actions were referred to as TMIs and checking them had been mandated by the US regulatory authorities.
I should say, the site on the shores of Lake Michigan impressed me, but another I visited later didn’t. I won’t name it, as it is now closed and it was the most untidy industrial plant of any type I have visited.
As we left, I gave my opinion to our support engineer and he told me they had a very large number of TMIs to process. I wasn’t surprised!
So why are railways generally so untidy?
Hydrogen Freight Trains And Anti-Slip Technology For UK Railways Get Share Of £9.4m Funding
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Professional Engineering, which is published by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.
This is the introductory summary.
A zero-emissions machine that removes and replaces rails, a hydrogen-based turbine system for freight trains and ‘cryogenic blasting’ to prevent wheel slip could all be coming to UK railways thanks to a new £9.4m fund.
The article is a good summary of the important projects and it also gives details of what a project in the last round of funding achieved.
I seem increasingly to be reposting articles from professional engineering institutions. Does this mean, that we’re all thinking that good engineering, is one of the ways out of this COVID-19 mess?
I also think, that if I look at the list of twenty-five new projects, that I listed in First Of A Kind Funding Awarded For 25 Rail Innovation Projects, that some will benefit the wider UK population in a world dominated by the remains of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Equipmake And HiETA Developing New Motor With 20kW/kg Power Density With Additive Manufacturing
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Green Car Congress.
This is the introductory paragraph.
UK-based electrification company, Equipmake, has teamed up with additive manufacturing organization HiETA to develop a next-generation motor as part of a project grant-funded by Innovate UK.
Additive manufacturing is 3D-printing by another name. This has come to the fore in the COVID-19, where schools, colleges and individuals have been using it to produce PPE.
Equipmake and HiETA are printing exotic alloys in intricate shapes to create the powerful motor.
Additive manufacturing is starting an amazing revolution. How many other common products can be redesigned to be more efficient and manufactured at lower cost.
Thirsty High-Rollers … Mining’s Heavy Haulers Prime Candidates For Hydrogen Conversion
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on ecogeneration.
You understand, what the author means about mining’s heavy haulers, when you open the article.
This paragraph describes their carbon emissions.
One large scale dump truck, depending on the haul road it is using, will use between 100 and 140 litres of diesel per 100km. These vehicles operate all day every day except for maintenance down time. That’s between 260kg and 360kg of CO2 per 100km per truck.
Large open pit mines have tens of these vehicles operating continuously, so the numbers build up very quickly.
The author then goes on to say why, that converting these vehicles to green hydrogen makes a lot of sense.
The dump trucks are already diesel/electric, which means that the diesel generator can be replaced with a hydrogen fuel cell and a battery.
Mining giant; Anglo-American will be introducing a prototype hydrogen-powered dump truck at a platinum mine in South Africa this year.
These paragraphs describe the transmission.
The vehicle, which is called a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) haul truck, will be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell module paired with Williams Advanced Engineering’s scalable high-power modular lithium-ion battery system. Williams provides batteries for FIA’s E-Formula motorsport.
This arrangement will replace the existing vehicle’s diesel engine, delivering in excess of 1MWh of energy storage. The battery system will be capable of recovering energy through regenerative braking as the haul truck travels downhill.
Note that the truck has more energy storage than is proposed for a four-car battery-electric train, like the Class 756 train, which has only 600 kWh.
The author finishes with this concluding paragraph.
With the major mining companies focusing on making significant strides in decarbonisation by 2030 expect there to be more announcements such as this focusing this “low hanging fruit” for the mining industry’s to materially reduce its carbon foot print.
Reading this, I can’t help feeling that replacement of a Class 66 locomotive with a zero-carbon hydrogen-battery-electric hybrid unit could be possible.
Battery-Powered Shunter Ready To Begin Testing
The title of this post is the same as that of an article in Issue 903 of Rail Magazine. The article describes how 08649, which is a Class 08 shunter is being converted to diesel-electric hybrid power.
- It appears, that the shunter wasn’t in the best of condition.
- A 6.8 litre John Deere diesel engine is to be fitted, which will be enhanced to Euro Stage 5.
- Tesla battery packs with a capacity of 300 kWh will be fitted.
- A bespoke control system is being developed.
The shunter is to be tested on the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway, when COVID-19 restrictions allow.
The reason for doing the work is not outlined in the article, although it does say this.
The work has been carried out by Meteor Power Ltd., which won a contract last year as part of the Department of Transport’s Innovation Carbon Reduction programme.
According to Wikipedia, 996 shunters were produced with another nearly two hundred similar shunters in other classes. Eighty two are deemed to have been preserved in Wikipedia, with sixty or so labelled as operational. Two operational examples are on the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway.
As some of the preserved examples are used by successful heritage railways and even commercial companies like Bombardier, perhaps Meteor have identified several possible commercial conversions.
Or it could be that Meteor want to show how their technology can reduce a company’s carbon emissions by re-putting a diesel engine with a hybrid transmission in a railway engine or a piece of heavy plant.
Will Innovative Engineering Solve The PPE Gown Problem?
In the early 1970s, I worked as a programmer for various consultancies, who were doing innovative engineering. In one, which could have been Cambridge Consultants, where I worked for perhaps three months. One guy told me about a project he was working on, that was the automatic assembly of clothing.
I know more than a bit about making clothes, as my mother taught me how to knit, crochet, sew and use a sewing machine. In the early years of our marriage, I used to make dresses for C and in one instance, I made her a long heavy-weight winter coat.
So I am surprised, that innovative engineering has not come together to make hospital gowns automatically!
Let’s hope that some engineers have seen the gap in the market, and as I write, are putting together a machine, where you put material in one end and get gowns out the other. Neatly folded of course!
Coronavirus: Mercedes F1 To Make Breathing Aid
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A breathing aid that can help keep coronavirus patients out of intensive care has been created in under a week.
From reading the article it appears that engineers from University College London, clinicians at University College Hospital and production engineers and specialists at Mercedes Formula One have combined to re-engineer and hopefully improve something called a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, which is already used in hospitals and has been used in China and Italy to combat the virus.
The new design would appear to have advantages.
- It doesn’t need an expensive ventilator.
- It doesn’t need an intensive care bed.
- From the pictures and video on a BBC Breakfast report, it looks to be quick and easy to manufacturer.
- A production rate of a thousand a day is claimed by Mercedes.
- The BBC Breakfast report also says, that patients don’t need to be sedated.
- It also looks like the NHS is going to fast-rack the device into use.
Will this rethinking of standard treatment increase hospital capacity and save lives?
I can’t answer the question, but given those behind the device, it must have a better than even chance of being a success!
History And Future Of The Compressed Air Economy
A reader in Canada has sent me a link to this article on Low Tech Magazine, which has the same title as this post.
This is the introductory sub-title.
Historical compressed air systems hold the key to the design of a low-tech, low-cost, robust, sustainable and relatively energy efficient energy storage medium.
As regular readers of this blog, will have noticed, I regularly post about a company called Highview Power.
This is the introduction from the Wikipedia entry for Highview Power.
Highview Power is a long-duration energy storage pioneer, specialising in cryogenic energy storage. It is based in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has permission for a commercial-scale 50 Megawatt/250 Megawatt-hour plant in England, building upon its earlier 5 Megawatt and 350 Kilowatt pilot plants. It plans to develop a 50MW plant/400MWh (eight hours of storage) in Vermont.
It has over 30 patents developed in partnership with British universities and has won technology funding from the British Government.
In February 2020 Sumitomo Heavy Industries invested $46m in the company.
The article on Low Tech Magazine gives the history of compressed air energy storage (CAES) and is a good background to the subject.
The Anonymous Widower 