Products - Rotec Hydraulics Ltd

Warship Power Units & Reservoir

After 4 months work replacing hydraulic pipework on a warship, Rotec’s engineers needed to flush the pipes to meet the required cleanliness standards. Due to a change in conditions on board the decision was made to design and build modular bespoke power units and a standalone reservoir.

Rotec have a long history working with the defence industry and specialise in bespoke design and manufacture of hydraulic power units for marine applications, amongst others.

Our team designed and built the power units using 55Kw electric motors close coupled to Berarma Vane pumps and included a flowmeter and a pressure gauge. The Berarma pumps are pressure compensated with variable flow rates. This gives the operators the flexibility to tailor flows and pressures thus ensuring turbulent flow conditions are met to maximise the cleaning action.

Electrical control panels are mounted direct to the trollies to allow ease of use

The power units are fitted with castoring braked wheels for easy manoeuvrability in tight spaces. The Rotec team also designed and manufactured a standalone reservoir, suitable for multiple applications and high volume (fluid) displacement, enabling maximum flexibility as design changes can be incorporated or removed as desired. The system includes pressure return filters which help remove any contaminants from the existing system, ensuring the pipes comply with client specified level of cleanliness.

Rotec delivered to the tight deadline, with just 1 week turnover.

Date: 26/09/2019

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

Case study: Containerised Flushing Rig

In August 2017, the head of Rotec’s Plymouth Depot, Dave Nance, brought in an interesting enquiry from one of Rotec’s existing customers – an engineering firm specialising in work in Aviation, Land, Marine and Defence sectors.

The firm required a bespoke containerised flushing rig system for marine application. All Design work for the Container, Hydraulic & Electrical was completed in-house by Rotec, followed by a build by a team of Rotec engineers, in-house electrical specialist and a number of subcontracted engineers to help with the workload. The whole team was headed by Andy Rimes and Richard Renfree.

The project took 3 months from start to completion.

Bespoke container:

6000mm long x 2500mm high x 2500mm wide
Tunnel design with double doors each end

2x separate Power units installed inside the container:

Each Power unit generally based upon: 4 x 7.5 Kw Motor & Pump sets installed onto a 3000 Litre stainless steel reservoir

Each Motor & Pump set producing variable flow rates from 70 L/Minute up to 170 L/Min via Electronic Variable speed Motor invertor drive control
Each Motor & Pump set provides Bi-Directional flushing control via directional control valves
Each Motor & Pump set provides pressure and return line filtration – Filtration ranges from 2 to 10 microns (Depending on filter elements used)
Individual contamination monitoring for each circuit.

Custom made and designed electrical control operating system:

Driven via touch screen tablet control
Remote operating control also possible

Hose Doctor: minimizing downtime at local quarry

Rotec were pleased to be recently joined by two Hose Doctor operatives: Matt Bearpark and Phil O’Connor. Matt covers Somerset and Bristol areas, while Phil covers areas surrounding Cardiff, Gloucester and Bristol.

Matt was recently called out to a local quarry, where two rams were leaking and needed to be back at work asap.

Matt relates:

“One ram was bent and the other had deep gouging in the rod causing leaking from both rams. Brand new rods had to machined and fitted along with new seal kits fitted. After removing rams from the excavator arm fitted inside the crusher housing I took them to Ram Reman” (Rotec’s sister company based in Wimborne, specialising in repair and manufacture of rams – hydraulic cylinders).

“The removal and refit took me 4 hours in total, while Ram Reman spent a day repairing and testing the ram functions, ready for refit. I was very happy with the feedback I received, the customer was really pleased with the short breakdown period and now the arms are working a lot tighter than they had before.”

Due to time constraints the repaired rams were not re-sprayed, but now work better than ever! Visit Ram Reman’s website for more information (new site currently under construction).

Date: 19/09/2017

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

NEW Mobile Hose Doctor van now in operation

Rotec are Introducing a New mobile ON-SITE hose repair/replacement service. The service has now been launched in Taunton and surrounding areas during the month of April 2017. The Hose Doctor van is a mobile workshop that carries a full range of Parker connectors and hoses.

1 hour maximum waiting time (unless otherwise informed)
Experienced engineer specialised in hydraulics ensures that repairs are carried out rapidly and to a high standard.
We use only genuine Parker parts that meet international standards and our own highly demanding specifications
Experience and expertise in a wide variety of hydraulic and pneumatic applications: plant hire, car transporters, fork lift trucks, aerial lift, lift trucks, truck cranes, refuse trucks, agriculture, marine, utilities
No hose assembly, cleaning or pellet charges
No consumables charges

Covered areas include: Exeter, Tiverton, Taunton, Bridgwater, Honiton, Crewkerne, Yeovil, Street and Bristol

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

Date: 21/07/2017

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.

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

Swapping old for new

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