It’s a fact that around 20% of global final energy consumption comes from renewable sources with more than 10% of all energy from traditional biomass, being used for heating.
At national level, at least 30 countries already have renewable energy contributing more than 20% of energy supply. Furthermore, national renewable energy markets are projected to continue to grow strongly in the coming decade and beyond.
Having invested more than £1million into the company last year, PRV Engineering Ltd reported a record turnover in 2013. Twelve months on from the installation of the company’s new plating facility, managing director Simon Jones is confident that 2014 will see a repeat performance.
With the company focussed on the construction industry, PRV Engineering is seeking to not only maintain its high standards, but to add a number of new contracts to the order book.
Simon said; “We had our best ever year in 2013, turning over around £4.1million. The plan for this year is very much the same. We want to keep developing and providing the ‘One stop shop’ service on which we pride ourselves.
Who would have thought the announcement by Sir James Dyson of a planned £250million expansion of his company headquarters in Wiltshire would be met with a degree of consternation? After all, what could be better than the creation of 3,000 engineering jobs?
Unfortunately, according to recent statistics, finding 3,000 new engineers is far from the straightforward task many would believe it to be. Even in these troubled times when many professions can pick and choose from a vast array of candidates, there are serious concerns surrounding the lack of qualified engineers moving into the industry.
The company has been working on plans for the new site for the past two years and is close to securing planning permission. “If that goes ahead, we hope to build it by 2015,” said Sir James Dyson in a recent article published in the Telegraph.
Last year we wrote a post about the introduction of 3D printers to industry.
We made some assumptions about how education, engineering and architecture industries would be likely to use this latest technology. Well 18 months down the line, let’s take a look at the developments of 3D printers and see how they are being used.
The commercial cost of 3D printers has reduced and their use seems to have been incorporated into just about every industry possible.
Hollywood and the film industry has embraced 3D printing wholeheartedly, with costumes, models and monsters all now being made using 3D printing techniques. This 3ders.org article tells in more detail how the production of concept models etc. is much quicker and easier using the latest technology.
PRV-Engineering Ltd are constantly moving with the times and investing in equipment to make sure the company stays ahead of its competitors. Over the last 12 months, managing director Simon Jones has invested more than £1.25million as part of the overall development of the Pontypool based engineering company.
Through the acquisition of and constant investment in new technology, PRV has moved forward at a significant rate of knots with one of the latest additions to the company’s plant being a state of the art, vertical travelling column machining centre with full Five Axis Synchronous milling ability – the Mazak VTC800/30SR
Electric Vehicles (EVs) first came into existence in the mid-19th century when electricity was among the preferred methods for motor vehicle propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time.
The internal combustion engine remains as the dominant propulsion method for motor vehicles, but electric power is certainly commonplace in other vehicle types, such as trains and smaller vehicles of all types.
UK scientists claim that by simplifying the power electronics they have developed a way to help Electric Vehicles travel further on a single battery charge. Lead by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) researchers have created a new material that they say can act as a more effective capacitor than those currently used in EVs, which require complex cooling systems.
5-axis machining is now used by many machining companies and allows machining of a part along 5 axes of motion compared to 3 axes in one setup. While this can be a cost saving factor, 5 Axis machining is used more often for complex contour work, which may need simultaneous movement of all 5 Axes.
Recent advances in software have helped make the conversion from 3-axis and 3+2 axis positioning to simultaneous 5-axis machining accessible to everyday numerical control programmers.
Although some of these techniques might require additional programming time, the benefits of reduced machining, setup time and reduced hand-polishing outweigh the costs.
5 Axis Milling technology takes the chequered flag as Formula 1 Team Lotus install 5 new HPU 450U machines at their workshop in Enstone, Oxfordshire. Team Lotus are one of the latest companies to give in to the promise and potential that the 5 axis milling process holds; a process that leading high precision machining specialists PRV-Engineering were quick to recognize the advantages of.They wre one of the first companies in the UK to invest in this latest state of the art engineering discipline.
New milling technology, that advances the traditional milling capability, has recently been announced. It comes courtesy of a new advancement from Vero UK in their Edgecam software range, and has been christened “Waveform Roughing Strategy”.
The New Milling Technology Deserves a few Plaudits
It’s a rare event when something new comes along in the engineering world, so this new milling technology deserves a few plaudits. Edgecam software is cutting edge stuff, if you’ll excuse the play on words. These software programs are specifically targeted at the high precision machining sector within the engineering industry. It’s state of the art CAM/CAD application which takes advanced tool-path engineering and seamlessly melds it with CAD output. The growing library of Edgecam software packages is intent on improving productivity through the manufacturing cycle.
Biological crude oil from Algae may soon become a commercial reality. So say engineering researchers from Michigan University in the US. Recent research seems to indicate the possibility of converting 65% of Green Marine Micro Algae into what is being called Biological Crude or “Biocrude” for short. This in itself is not new news. But being able to create the Biological Crude in one minute is! Results of the research have just been published at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
We Can’t Wait a Million Years
With traditional crude taking as long as 1 million years to form from marine organisms, it won’t be very long before existing known sources that are financially viable to extract, become totally depleted. Waiting another million years for naturally occurring stocks to regenerate just isn’t an option. Solar power looks like being a real possibility as an alternative energy source, but now too – so does Biocrude.
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