Latest News March 2024
Welcome to the Frewer Engineering latest news and updates.
In this edition, we’re proud to announce our renewed Cyber Essentials Plus certification, showing our dedication to maintaining excellent cyber security.
We also explore the exceptional skills and services that Frewer can offer, and some recent projects that we have been working on.
Cyber Essentials Plus Certification
We are pleased to announce a significant achievement in our ongoing dedication to cyber security excellence. Frewer Engineering has successfully achieved recertification in both Cyber Essentials Basic and Plus, marking a critical milestone in our commitment to cyber security and trust.
In today’s digital age, characterised by rapid technological advancements and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, the importance of robust cyber security measures cannot be overstated. Achieving the Cyber Essentials Plus certification demonstrates unwavering commitment to protecting our clients’ data and maintaining the integrity of our systems against emerging cyber challenges.
Cyber Essentials Plus certification involved an exhaustive evaluation of our cyber security protocols, encompassing network security, access control, malware defence, and other critical areas. This achievement not only fortifies our operations against potential cyber threats but also bolsters the security posture of the projects we manage, ensuring they meet the highest standards of data protection and system integrity. To read more about us and our testimonials click here.
From Concept to Completion: Capturing Clients’ Requirements
At Frewer we thrive on unravelling complex challenges presented by our clients. At times, our customers require assistance in catagorising the requirements of a particular project. We combine experience and multi-discipline agility to deliver novel engineering solutions to these challenges.
With years of experience and a wealth of knowledge across various engineering disciplines, our team excels at transforming ideas into actionable plans. We listen intently to needs and requirements, probing deeper to understand the nuances of their situation. Armed with this understanding, we leverage our extensive expertise to propose effective and tailored solutions.
But our role doesn’t stop at proposal, we provide continuous compliance assessments against requirements during project progression to ensure our solution aligns with the customers’ vision and objectives. Collaboration is key, and we prioritise open communication and regular feedback sessions to keep our clients informed and engaged from concept to delivery. To find out more about our specialisms click here.
Vibration & Scientific Equipment
Equipment used in industry often requires dynamic assessment to ensure functionality across a range of loading conditions, which may lead to mitigating actions to help isolate the structure from certain forcing frequencies to allow it to function correctly. This equipment can range from a high-speed shaft to delicate scientific research equipment.
posing equipment to substantial vibrations and shocks during transport, operation, or even downtime can cause damage, potentially necessitating the replacement of the component making it an important failure mode to mitigate. Our team has extensive industry experience dealing with understanding, analysing, and mitigating excitation in assemblies.
Recent work has involved conducting a dynamic finite element analysis of complex structures to identify harmonic frequencies and where necessary conducted forced response analysis to determine if a forced vibration could lead to resonance. This comprehensive approach ensures a thorough understanding of structural dynamics and enables proactive mitigation of resonance risks.
The outcome of our dynamic assessment facilitated optimisation of the design, enhancing the dynamic response of the assembly, thereby ensuring structural integrity across the required range of operating frequencies. Previous solutions have involved the integration of squeeze film dampers in high speed drive shafts as well as the use of expansion bellows used in coupling a large test rig to a facility air supply.
Design & Analysis of Thermal Management Systems
At Frewer, our dedication to delivering quality solutions extends to our expertise in thermal analysis. Backed by a seasoned engineering team boasting extensive experience, we excel in developing effective solutions for even the most complex thermal challenges. Our proficiency in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) allows us to develop innovative cooling and thermal management systems across diverse applications, ranging from aerospace and marine industries, to renewable and nuclear energy.
By integrating fundamental theory with advanced CFD and FEA techniques, we possess the capability to tackle multifaceted problems. Whether it’s deciphering the thermal interaction of fluids and structures, optimising heat exchanger efficiency, or fine-tuning thermal management systems, our team is well-equipped to navigate the complexities of thermodynamics.
Recently in the aerospace industry, where precision and reliability are paramount, our thermal analysis expertise has played a pivotal role in successfully optimising both internal and external fluid flows within gas turbine components, including probes and measuring equipment. Through collaboration with our design team, we’ve refined and optimised models to maximise heat transfer, whilst minimising the pressure loss of cooling fluids, ensuring all our customer specifications are met to the highest standard.
From optimising gas turbine design to enhancing thermal protection and cooling of components in extreme environments, our multi-discipline team of design and analysis engineers collaborates closely with customers to deliver bespoke and innovative solutions.
Frewer’s Key Services
- Concept design with preliminary CFD and FEA analysis
- Concept review, ensuring all requirements are met
- Detailed structural analysis, including fatigue, non-linear, thermal and full structural assurance
- Detailed fluid analysis, including thermal and aerodynamic optimisation, and pressure analysis
- Design of interfaces and connections
- Development of technical drawings
Dynamic Design: Frewer’s Rotative Rigs
Rotating machinery is a common feature in several industries scaling from energy production turbines to hand-held tools. The dynamic complexity associated with a high rotational speed, combined with structural and thermal constraints, requires expert analysis to avoid under-performing systems and reduction of operational life.
Our team has proven expertise with complex rotor dynamic systems such as the development of an innovative high-speed rotating rig for the National Centre of Propulsion and Power located at the Whittle Laboratory, with the primary objective being the fast and efficient testing of a variety of turbine, compressor and fan blades.
To accommodate for the wide range of test articles in the system and the extreme power requirement of 1.2MW, careful examination of the rig gas path using CFD and experienced rotor dynamic analysis, allowed for critical speed identification and analysis on both the rotor and support structure. Key insights such as fatigue damage to bearing materials, rotor to stator clearance, and noise were also examined.
At Frewer, we believe that connectivity between sub-systems is paramount for efficient and reliable design, allowing for rapid iteration and problem-solving. The multidisciplinary nature of our analysis allows us to combine the results from our CFD and FEA capabilities, giving insight into thermal strains, stresses, and critical reserve factors for complex rotational systems.
