News & Case Studies

We'd like to introduce you to Martin Clayton and welcome him to the Fulton team in his role as applications engineer.

Martin graduated from the University of the West of England with a degree in automotive engineering and joins Fulton with a background in design engineering where, in his previous role, he was responsible for designing and manufacturing bespoke vacuum equipment.

As Balfour Beatty decommissions its Hinkley Point C Marine Works concrete batching plant at Avonmouth, two-and-a-half years after their installation and commissioning, we look at the processes and arduous operating conditions that the three Fulton VSRT steam boilers (amongst the first to be delivered and installed in the UK) have endured.

Embarking on one of the most complex marine engineering projects in the world at the time, Balfour Beatty excavated and constructed three cooling water tunnels under the seabed (two 3.5km intake tunnels and one 1.8km outfall tunnel) that will supply EDF’s two nuclear reactors at the 3,200 MWe Hinkley Point C with cooling water from the Bristol Channel.

In 2015, with business improving but original process equipment reaching end-of-life, Rebellion Beer Company bucked the trend and, with impartial advice from heat transfer specialist Fulton, replaced its ageing steam boiler for a thermal fluid system. Now, six years on, we approached Rebellion’s Mark Gloyens to update us on how brewery life has coped with the switch.

Anyone running a brewery will tell you just how critical the boil phase of the brewing process is; and when Rebellion set out on its journey from steam to thermal, they were warned that they’d never succeed in getting that clean flavour achieved from a steam-driven rolling boil.

“The move from steam to thermal was a leap of faith on our part, but the warnings received from other breweries have been proven to be incorrect!” says Rebellion Beer Company’s Mark Gloyens. “Product quality has improved because we now have more control over temperature for the wort boiling process than ever before. We’re getting a very good quality boil that is controllable and we have achieved everything we wanted from the move from steam to thermal fluid”.

A steam boiler is just one part of an often complex and well-engineered steam system that requires the correct ancillary equipment to ensure process uptime and system longevity. But what are these ancillaries for and why do we need them. In this article, Fulton’s Ruth Price looks into the products that turn a boiler into a fully-fledged process steam solution.

The use of intelligent sequencing system can provide redundancy and reliability and also offer significant energy savings by automating start-up and shut-down procedures; controlling and optimising main steam header pressure or temperature; ensuring steam supply is controlled precisely for the required process; and balancing the load distribution across the boilers, thus eliminating extensive losses from repeated start/stop cycling of burners as much as is feasibly possible.

Sequencing should be about more than just simply on/off or start-up control. An intelligent sequencing system should also consider steam system load conditions and match this to the most efficient combination of boiler capacity according to the process requirements.

With a requirement for new steam boilers with increased capacity, higher efficiency and more eco-friendly emissions when expanding their operations at a second facility in Romania, Universal Alloy Corporation had no hesitation in turning to heat transfer specialist Fulton, the supplier of steam boiler solutions already installed at its facilities in Romania and Vietnam.

Heat transfer specialist Fulton has supplied, assisted with installation and commissioned two gas-fired, horizontal RBC3000 steam boilers for Romania-based Universal Alloy Corporation (UAC), a manufacturer and fabricator of high-strength, hard alloy extrusions for aircraft structures or where precision-engineered products are critical. This is UAC’s second Fulton installation in Romania – at an all-new facility built to cope with increased demand from the airline industry – and third installation across its sites in Europe and Vietnam.

With its management team constantly reviewing the performance of the wider market and current economic climate – which are showing signs that capital expenditure has dropped by approximately 40% [Monetary Policy Report August 2020] – heat transfer specialist Fulton has taken the unprecedented decision to introduce an initiative to cut the gross margin on its VSRT steam boiler to ensure that customers from key sectors, including the NHS and food & beverage processing, will benefit from its scheme.

Commenting for Fulton, managing director Carl Knight says: “Given the exceptional nature of recent events and the struggle many businesses find themselves in, we have decided to launch an initiative designed to help the many key sectors that have themselves been assisting the wider population during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

“We know from a recent surge in demand for servicing and maintenance that many of our customers in these sectors are operating steam boilers that are ageing and, in some cases, need replacing; and others who need to expand their capabilities and facilities to meet current demand. However, we also appreciate that current trading conditions mean capital budgets have been affected, so opportunities to purchase new capital equipment is restricted.

Fulton appoints new applications engineer

VSRT steam boilers complete arduous contract at Hinkley Point C concrete batching plant

Brewery has no regrets following rebellious move from steam to thermal

The makings of a fully-fledged process steam solution

Universal Alloy turns to Fulton for steam

Fulton Sacrifices Gross Margins to Assist Struggling Key Sectors