Alliance in fluid dynamics and fluids engineering

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 10, 2002

A formidable world force in fluids engineering has emerged with the signing of an alliance between the BHR Group and CSIRO.

A formidable world force in fluids engineering has emerged with the signing of an alliance between Great Britain's BHR Group (BHRG) and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

It will be supported directly by CSIRO Thermal and Fluids Engineering, part of CSIRO, which is one of the world's largest and most diverse scientific research institutions with a staff of more than 6000.

The BHR Group's Fluid Engineering Centre at Cranfield, UK, is a leading technology centre for fluid mixing, water and pipeline management, sealing technology, separation, high-pressure jet cutting, and development of software systems for modelling complex networks.

The combined strengths of the two organisations in fluid dynamics and fluids engineering lays a solid foundation to the claim that together, CSIRO and BHR Group provide the world's leading fluids engineering capability.

Head of CSIRO Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology, Larry Little, says: "The alliance will provide a springboard for CSIRO into EU and North American markets".

BHR Group chief executive, Alistair Muir, says, "We are delighted to have the opportunity, with CSIRO's support, to reach a wider customer base in the Asia-Pacific region with our products, services and technologies".

Dr Dilip Manuel, who was involved with the design and development of the Olympic Flame for the Sydney 2000 games, has been seconded to the UK as part of CSIRO's commitment.

He will be working with BHRG's marketing director, Mike Butcher, to market CSIRO's and BHRG's fluid dynamics capabilities and technologies globally, and to introduce CSIRO's capabilities and technologies to UK, Europe and North America.

As part of the Alliance agreement CSIRO and BHR Group will cobrand the respected BHR Group international conference programme, including events on jetting technology, fluid sealing, multiphase technology and aerodynamics, and ventilation of vehicle tunnels.

Using the synergies created by the alliance, BHRG and CSIRO will extend their services and products to the health, chemical, food, biomedical, water, utilities, building, and manufacturing industries.

Just one of the technologies the new alliance will offer is world-class expertise in mixing technology including: The Rotated Arc Mixer (RAM), a radical new mixing technology from CSIRO that is five times more energy efficient than traditional industrial mixing for processing products ranging from explosives to cosmetics.

BHRG's Fluid Mixing Processes consortium, which has for 18 years been the leading industrial mixing R and D facility used by the major international companies working in the chemical industry.

A fluids dynamics capability for the mineral processing industries, which is used to develop new technologies to improve product yield, reduce equipment wear and maintenance costs, and reduce power consumption.

It will offer such developments and products as: Diajet, a unique system for cold cutting most materials from plastics, to hard ceramics and steel in applications including decommissioning of munitions and subsea structures, fire extinguishing and manufacturing.

In machining duties it delivers a sevenfold improvement in cutting performance without the changes to the material's properties or distortion of the cut material, often caused by hot cutting.

The Rotary Classifier, a CSIRO development that has revolutionised the use of separator screens used in a large number of industrial applications, from recycling to mining.

Process intensification (PI) introduces a new paradigm to the chemical industry and enables the design of compact table-top reactors.

The result is safer, cheaper-to-build plant with lower operating costs, which permits just-in-time production and distributed processing.

PI is already proven on several processes and recently an advanced facility has been supplied to a major multinational pharmaceutical company.