Control Automation Feature Library

Operations Engineer's library catalogues editorial features going back five years.

Access to all archive material is free to all, including non-members of IPlantE (the Institution of Operations Engineers) or BES (Bureau of Engineer Surveyors), under the umbrella of SOE (Society of Operations Engineers). However, to discover the many benefits of becoming an SOE member, please click here.

01/04/2009 ISIS or Oracle What has the opening of the £200 million second target station (TS2) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory's ISIS pulsed neutron source got to do with plant engineers? More than most mere mortals - apart, that is, from the world's ... » Read More

01/04/2009 In the hot seat So we've got pressure, flow and level measurement under our belts (see Plant Engineer, November/December 2008 and January/February 2009). Time to move on to temperature - and although there are very few sensing technologies, there is huge ... » Read More

01/04/2009 Cut the energy hype Although oil prices have come down, the recession is forcing organisations of all kinds to keep on cutting energy costs. One consequence is increasing numbers of companies seeing energy saving as a business opportunity - and hence the ... » Read More

01/04/2009 Compressed energy Electric motors use two-thirds of all electricity consumed by industry, so any technology capable of cutting this drain on resources has got to be a good thing. Yet, despite proven and significant savings from variable speed drives (VSDs) ... » Read More

01/04/2009 Belt and braces Can you recall some of the more extreme reactions from the general public when the idea of compulsory seat belts was first mooted? They ranged from: 'No one can make me put one of those things on' to 'No [expletive deleted] way!' In short, ... » Read More

01/02/2009 The pressure is on In the post Buncefield era, both the HSE and competent persons have been finding plant operators failing in their statutory duty. Brian Tinham reports » Read More

01/02/2009 Maintaining a balance Why is it that, when plant can fail so completely and expensively, many organisations still turn their backs on preventive maintenance tools? Brian Wall looks at some options » Read More

01/02/2009 Training matters Setting aside the global recession, there are few subjects more in the news than engineering skills. Recent months have seen government ministers, DIUS (the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills), EC UK, the ETB (Engineering ... » Read More

01/02/2009 Open & shut case You'll have heard it said more times than you probably care to remember that variance is the bane of manufacturing - and the same is true in the process sector, the utilities and so on. Why? Because it leads to all sorts of problems, ... » Read More

01/02/2009 On the level Last year, we began a series of features on instrumentation and control, aimed at helping plant engineers to skill-up. In the first feature we covered pressure and flow equipment. In this second piece, we move on to level instruments - ... » Read More

01/02/2009 Maintec show What - Maintec exhibition and conference Where - NEC, Birmingham When - 17-19 March 2009 » Read More

01/02/2009 Lift ropes and lubrication When it comes to steel wire ropes for lifts and elevators, getting lubrication and maintenance right couldn't be much more critical. At the most basic level, all such ropes must be periodically checked for equal tensions, as well as for ... » Read More

01/02/2009 Electric Engineers It's often said that one of the biggest differences between plants in, say, the chemical or pharmaceutical industries, as opposed to those in power generation, is that the former are developed in a laboratory pilot (where the learning is ... » Read More

01/02/2009 Busting the dust Whether it's fumes from the manufacture or application of paints, solvents, chemicals and rubber, or dust from processes such as sanding, grinding or machining, plant engineers need to be concerned with correctly applied dust and fume ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Waste not, want not With legislation, under EC pressure, now forcing reductions in the quantity of municipal and industrial waste that goes to landfill, the relatively simple processes of collecting rubbish and tipping it into holes are having to be replaced ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Virtuoso performance It won't have escaped your attention that instrumentation and control is encroaching inexorably into our bailiwicks. It started in condition-based maintenance, with plant engineers using, for example, portable ultrasonic flowmeters, ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Trapped steam Pulp and paper mills are among our most energy- and emissions-intensive plants. Large quantities of steam are essential for many of its processes and the sad fact is that, because boilers, steam distribution systems, heat exchangers, ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Pump suction Selecting a pump is always about balancing several factors - for example, the volumes and contents to be pumped, the efficiency required and how frequently the pump will be run. But where space is at a premium, or the cost of changing ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Plant life matters Although the cost of components - such as rolling element bearings, rotors and fasteners - in hydraulic pumps is usually very small, compared to the list price of the pumps themselves, the cost of stopped production and any consequential ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Near zero emissions With the obvious exception of the global economic crisis and its insidious infection now of the ?real economy', recent months, and indeed years, have seen no greater issue than climate change. Governments and organisations around the world ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Hospital robots The robot revolution is underway and will be happening in a hospital near you very soon. So says Dr Patrick Finlay, director of Prosurgics, the company he founded back in 1995 to build medical robots. And he adds: 'Within the next 20 ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Greased lightning So-called environmentally friendly and synthetic lubricants have been available for some time now in ever growing ranges, tuned to the sheer diversity of industrial requirements. But, while the latter are now in widespread use, ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Discovery machine CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the planet's most powerful subatomic particle accelerator - made it into the record books when, at 10.28am on Wednesday 10 September, in front of the world's hyped-up media, the first beam was ... » Read More

01/12/2008 Breath of fresh air It is not uncommon for organisations to report that up to a third of their total factory energy bill can be attributed to compressed air plant. No surprise then that, with energy prices at record highs, reviews of compressed air systems ... » Read More

01/10/2008 Wet engineering With the likely passing of the European Environmental Liability Directive 2004/35/EC into British law in December - extending the existing 'polluter pays' principle to water sources, inhabited land, and protected species and habitats - ... » Read More