Project Summary

Machinery Plant Space in Materials Recycling

National services are often taken for granted, without thinking about the considerable investment into businesses and infrastructure that goes on behind the scenes.

Everyday processes are often assumed to just work; however, they are often driven by large, expensive pieces if machinery that require a lot of configuration, maintenance and monitoring. Not to mention the initial expense of the machinery, and the costs associated if it becomes damaged.

A large, UK-based materials processing company approached us for plant-specific protection or large materials processing machines, with a specific interest of protecting the machinery items which are often running for upwards of 20 hours a day.

We surveyed several their sites across the UK to understand the areas they wanted protecting, the risks involved at each particular location and what the best solution would be after speaking to each individual site manager. Their primary concern was machinery overheating, leading to increased fire-risks if the machinery is unmonitored for a short period of time.

The end solution was a self-contained cylinder based open-head deluge system, which led to ‘total flooding’ in the particular risk area. This consisted of a series of water and nitrogen cylinders, equal to the risk and discharge time required by the client, and mechanical activation valves linked to an electronic system control panel. The primary source of activation was using a series of smoke and heat detectors, set up in a double-knock arrangement, to ensure no false activations. Once a ‘confirmed fire’ signal was received by the control panel, an electrical signal was sent to the solenoid valve which allows for a full system discharge through all open nozzles. This was set for the extent of the risk from the machinery, so that no surrounding area was affected by fire spread.

The solution was compact and cylinder arrangements flexible to enable the engineers to install into a variety of different spaces as deemed best by the site management teams.

The system is serviced annually, without a wet discharge test, however all components and electrical control systems are tested for full system integrity.

Project Summary

Waste Transfer Sector

The waste and recycling sector is amongst the most active sectors in Europe, with a value of over £30bn in 2020. However, in recent years with increased production and disposal of electronics, there are a number of high-risk areas that can have drastic knock-on effects within large plants across the UK.

One particular area of risk is fires caused by batteries which have been incorrectly disposed of in normal waste methods, rather than using correct e-waste recycling methods across the UK.

These fires start when batteries fall from waste conveyor belts and get caught in the roller bars underneath, often getting crushed, sparking, exploding and carrying a huge fire risk into general machinery spaces and along conveyors.

We were approached by one of the country’s largest fire detection companies and were asked to produce a bespoke system that worked with their early detection systems, for the largest waste transfer company in Europe.

Our team of highly skilled systems designers surveyed the site and discovered a large number of concerning factors; particularly, the vast quantity of waste that is being transferred around these sites, the flammable risk materials and machinery within each transfer station and the pure scale of what was required to be achieved.

We spent time with the client and end user to understand what their primary concern was, and looked at how to achieve the most effective solution with the shortest reaction time possible, to ensure that fire spread was managed as efficiently as possible

We designed from the ground up a completely bespoke solution for the end user. This consisted of two separate systems, integrated into a central fire control system which can be managed throughout site. This consisted of two, hydraulically suitable pump sets, utilising a supply and demand arrangement for each system. One system covered the main plant areas and machinery, whilst the other system covered the smaller transfer conveyors. Custom control panels were designed to support and work as swiftly as possible alongside the rapid flame detection system being utilised across the facility.
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Each system was also fitted with manual override options to allow operators a chance of early activation and individual sectional solenoid valves in order to allow for precise reporting data to be fed back to the site monitoring station so that early warning can be provided to the other parts of the plant. This also worked with an early shutdown procedure, which integrated the suppression and detection systems to the emergency plant shutdown system. This stopped the conveyors and allowed for a greatly reduced risk spread to be implemented.

The system utilised 25,000 ltr water storage tanks to provide full coverage on each system. A series of carefully calibrated nozzles were placed along the edge of the conveyor, or directly above the conveyor path where required, to provide optimum coverage levels for the risk at hand.

The system is serviced annually in line with the appropriate standards and wet-tested to ensure full system integrity.