Valve WG on Tour

Shortly before the national lockdown, the BVAA’s Valve Working Group undertook a tour of sites of special interest around Glasgow, Scotland. Mustering on April 2nd, the meetings kicked off on with a tour on the 3rd of TUV SUD National Engineering Laboratory in East Kilbride (featured in VU51, page 50), at the kind invitation of Dr Carl Wordsworth.

Already a world leading authority on the testing of flow, the centre has a broad range of expertise in CFD and valve testing too, and the laboratory was recently augmented with a hugely impressive $21.4m Advanced Multiphase Facility (AMF), which contains a colossal number of valves.

In the afternoon, we transited to the Advanced Forming Research Centre at the kind invitation of Paul Cantwell, the AFRC’s Oil & Gas Exchange Fellow.

Based at Inchinnan and part of the University of Strathclyde, to the uninitiated what the AFRC can do with metal is best described as a cross between alchemy and witchcraft!

There were many ‘wow!’ moments, but the ‘alloy wheel’ formed from a blank plate with perfectly contoured, consistent material thickness and the required material properties was a massive eye-opener as to what is possible these days.

The Valve WG met on the 4th April at the James Walker Devol facility in Gourock, at the kind invitation of JW’s Andy Hambleton. Situated on the staggeringly beautiful Clyde estuary, this has to be one of the most amazing vistas at any valve industry facility.

Having taking care of our ever-expanding, ever more complicated technical business, the working group were taken on a tour of the factory, the home of the world-famous Devlon family of engineering-grade thermoplastic materials.

We have often touted the BVAA Valve WG as an educational opportunity for younger engineers, but with this tour BVAA really broke the mould. Our grateful thanks to TUV SUD NEL, AFRC and James Walker Devol and their teams for making this a tour to remember.

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