One week of work experience at Rotec

Last month, we were pleased to team up with the Kingsmead School in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, to provide a work experience for one of their pupils: Harry Alcock. Harry joined our Taunton Depot for a week, to experience first-hand how Rotec operates. Under the direction of Matt Turnbull, Rotec’s purchasing manager, Harry spent time working in the Stores, Warehouse, Electrical Bay and the office learning about Mechanical Design and Website build.

Harry was in for a Health and Safety briefing on Monday morning, before spending the afternoon with our Stores Manager, where he learned the general operational principles such as booking in/out, packing and picking. The next day, Harry was actively involved in the Stores day to day activities discussed the previous day and assisted with assembling a crate for one of Rotec’s marine customers.

On Wednesday, Harry joined the marketing department where he was introduced to website building using the popular online platform Wix. Harry chose to create a website focused on supercars and spent the day with Rotec’s marketing executive creating a working site using best marketing practices. The website Harry created is available on: https://harrysalcock03.wixsite.com/harryssupercars

Thursday morning was spent in the warehouse hose assembly with our team of engineers, wrapping hoses for our utilities customer.

Harry then joined our electrical engineering team, in the electrical bay, learning about safe working practises and some hands on electrical work.

On Friday morning, Harry was back in the office, working under the guidance of Rotec’s engineering director (pictured), who taught Harry about CAD design, before moving onto assisting the stores and the warehouse in the afternoon, with their usual Friday housekeeping tasks.

Matt, who supervised and supported Harry through-out his working experience, was impressed at Harry’s work ethic, at his ability to follow instructions and his positive attitude. We would gladly welcome Harry back anytime and we look forward to the next time we are able to support the local schools with their work placements.

 

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

Date: 2/08/2018

 

Rotec at Seawork marine exhibition 2018

Rotec was excited to be part of this year’s marine exhibition in Southampton, an event we have been returning to for over 10 years.

We shared our stand with our sister company – Ram Reman, the specialist in hydraulic cylinders who compliments Rotec’s core capabilities in the design, build, installation and maintenance of hydraulic, pneumatic and electronic systems.

This year Rotec decided to champion Parker Racor filtration products, offering 30% discount in honour of the event. Rotec and Parker have a long history of close partnership, with Rotec recently becoming the only Parker HTC (Hydraulic Technical Centre) in the South of UK. Stand Visitors could look forward to a game of ‘Can you guess where these Racor filtration elements are on our ship?’ with the chance to win small prizes, using a Parker IQAN unit incorporated into a lit up boat unit.

As always, we had a great time and we look forward to the next year!

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

Date: 15/07/2018

 

Restoring a submersible at Aerospace Bristol

Last year Rotec were approached by the Bristol Aero Collection Trust, the registered charity behind Aerospace Bristol – a new £19m museum on the historic Filton airfield. The museum tells the story of more than a century of aviation history, from the Boxkite to the modern day, with the last Concorde ever to fly as Aerospace Bristol’s stunning centrepiece. The restoration work at the museum has been undertaken almost entirely by volunteers with technical expertise.

Rotec were contracted to help restore the CONSUB back to life after almost 60 years since it first hit water. The Continental Shelf Submersible or CONSUB is an unmanned submersible developed in the 1970 by BAC Electronic Systems Group at Filton. The remotely controlled seabed exploration vehicle was designed to operate to a depth of 2000ft., at an underwater speed of 2 1/3 knots, controlled with 1km of umbilical cable.

Harry Crick, one of the BACT volunteers explains:

“Tests were carried out in tracking underwater telephone cables and inspection of seabed features. In 1977, Consub 2 (built by British Aerospace and operated by SubSea Surveys) went into operation in the North Sea working on pipeline inspection and seabed survey. Day rates were half those of the manned submersible spread and eventually, 24h operations were achieved. This resulted in the large ROV becoming the accepted method for pipeline inspection.”

However the last surviving specimen, the CONSUB 1, was not in a working condition. It was donated by the British Geological Survey who previously used it as a display in their car park in Edinburgh.

The renovation and overhaul of Consub was carried out by Bristol volunteers at the museum.
Rotec was tasked with the design, build and supply a hydraulic power unit & electrical control system, that could be used to control the original thrusters and drill head, allowing the museum staff to demonstrate the system functionality. In order to preserve the original condition and appearance of the submersible, the original power unit was left fitted (even though it is not functional) and some of the original solid pipework routes were replicated and utilised using new tube and fittings.
Rotec built a brand hydraulic power unit which is concealed with in the exhibits structure, which will allow the CONSUB to be controlled through a control panel designed and build by Rotec, instead of through the original umbilical cords.

 

Visit Aerospace Bristol for more information, to help raise funds, book a meeting or a conference ‘Under the wings of Concorde’ or to volunteer at this exceptional new venue.

Date: 21/09/2017

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

Extreme lifting: Using Rotec winching systems at 500 ft

At the beginning of 2016, we started to work with National Grid, contracted to support the company’s hydraulic, pneumatic and electronic needs alongside the primary project (bespoke winching systems for their fleet of vehicles), and we didn’t have to wait long for a challenging project to come through.

Tower Leg Winches

The company was planning a maintenance project in and around of Chepstow, involving the lowering and raising of insulators on the two 500ft high river crossing towers spanning the river Severn, which form part of the national grid and the 21,000 towers owned by the company in the UK.

Chris Land, National Grid’s Equipment and Live Working Overhead Line Engineer supervising the project relates:

“This project has been challenging from the start, not only because of the height of the towers but also because the tower loadings and fittings on these towers are totally unique compared to the rest of the towers on the transmission network. The insulators were last changed in 1969 and we have very limited experience of working on these towers, we have been working from 50 year old drawings and information to develop the procedures necessary to carry out the replacement of the insulators. The primary focus has been to maintain a safe working environment for the linesman carrying out the work to enable the work to be delivered safely and within the timescales. The work was delivered well within the allotted timescales with zero incidents”

 

 

lowering old insulators

Lowering old insulators

swapping old for new

Swapping old for new

New insulators lifted into position

New insulators lifted into position

 

 

 

Preparations for this project have taken over 6 months, with 6 weeks given to the crew to complete the work on the two 500 ft high towers. Rotec was asked to design and build a bespoke Tower Leg Capstan Winch Assembly for the project, capable of lowering and raising the heavy insulators on a system of ropes.

The assembly consists of three main components: capstan winch, engine drive unit and a reservoir unit. Adrian Derbidge, Rotec’s engineer assigned to the project says “This is a powerful unit, with a safe working limit of up to 1 ton on a dynamic line pull”. Adrian has seen the project through from the start, starting with the design and build, all the way to the site visits, maintaining his presence in case of any adjustments being necessary. He says the challenges in this project were in keeping the units as light as possible and compact, while retaining their ability to tackle heavy loads.

Click below to watch the National Grid engineers work at dizzying heights as shown on the news:

NationalGrid_BBC1West_28.03.2017_22.39

 

 

Date: 27/04/2017

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

Networking at Leonardo factory: in the shade of the AW159 Wildcat

Richard Lang, our Sales Director was recently invited to attend an event organised by WEAF (West Of England Aerospace Forum). It was a great networking opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new people from the industry, as well as see part of the Leonardo factory, there even was the spectacular AW159 Wildcat on show!

AW159 is the latest generation 6 tonne multi-role maritime helicopter, designed to operate from the smallest helicopter-capable ships, in the world’s harshest maritime environments of high sea state and associated deck motion conditions. The rotorcraft is an improved version of the Westland Super Lynx designed to serve in the battlefield utility, search and rescue and anti-surface warfare roles. In British service, common variants are being operated by both the Royal Navy and British Army to replace their aging Lynx Mk.7/8/9 rotorcraft. The AW159 has also been offered to several export customers.

Read more about the AW159 Wildcat here 

AW159 Wildcat

Date: 13/04/2017

Author: Sarka Humpolcova