If it’s worth doing – do it once and do it right!
A good way to describe how to plan flow control, is by comparing it to a kitchen (yes – really – bear with us!)
If you’re buying a new kitchen, what is the process? Do you make it up as you go along?
No you don’t – you design it first to makes sure everything fits, with the right appliances in the right places, so that your super fancy, 8 burner, induction hob and built-in, self-cleaning twin oven with warming drawer, are going to look awesome. #wellexcited
But then your builder tells you your power supply won’t run the hob and the units are too narrow to take the oven…
DISASTER! Your kitchen is now going to take 3 weeks longer while you change the design – and you’re cooking for a family of 5 on a camping stove in the hall! Not great – AND it could have been easily avoided by speaking to experts early in the design process.
In the same way, WE can help up front with the design of flow control systems, to ensure they’re both buildable, and cover all the specification requirements …
“Hey, look, we’ve designed and built a brilliant fish pass structure which allows salmon to re-visit once cut off spawning grounds up stream, using a weir penstock design which allows complete automated operation”
“Great work guys, but the weir penstock needs some minor adjustments following a particularly high river level over the last couple of weeks – How are we going to isolate it to carry out the works?”
“Don’t worry, we’ve built some rebates into the design upstream and downstream, so just drop some stoplogs in and jobs a good one”
“Err……what stoplogs? Can you supply some to suit please?”
BUT unfortunately, the fish pass weir is 6 metres wide and the stoplog rebates are nowhere near big enough to take the products required to finish the job properly!
Talk to IBS early in the design process and we can help you select suitable products and make correct design decisions, to stop things like this happening – which cost both time and money to put right…
The current challenging and unprecedented global situation provides some time to spend a bit longer looking at the small details, which have a major impact on both the construction and future of the plant (or the kitchen…)
By Dave Birnie, IBS Engineered Products
