In 2015, Hitachi Rail’s £110 million investment established its northeast manufacturing base with a 700-strong workforce to build 122 pioneering trains as part of the UK government’s Intercity Express Programme, along with 70 zero-emission Class 385 regional trains for Scotland.
The new welding and painting facility now allows Hitachi Rail to complete the build of the high-tech aluminium carriage shells of the next generation of intercity trains for East Midlands Railway and Avanti West.
Commenting on the expansion project’s contribution to output, Hitachi Rail facilities manager, Colin Trevor said: “We can now design, fabricate, paint, assemble and test trains at this facility, allowing us to be more globally competitive, with the capacity to build a wide range of products, from metros to commuter and high-speed trains”.
The new welding and painting production plant is installed within a 194 x 40 metre warehouse conversion adjacent to the main assembly area. This development came with a requirement for a compressed air supply for painting operations and an argon gas feed for the TIG welding workstations.
Wearside Pneumatics, Atlas Copco Compressors’ Gateshead-based premier distributor, was called upon to produce the design, specify the pipework system, and to carry out the installation of dual ring mains to link the air and gas supplies from the existing assembly plant to the new production workstations.
The recommendation to Hitachi Rail’s production management was twofold: firstly, a 100mm diameter aluminium 180 x 40 metre ring main to deliver 7bar compressed air at the rate of 474 l/s (1705m3h) to 40 drops within the weld operation area. In parallel with the air requirement, the argon supply structure to feed the welding workstations would comprise a 35mm stainless-steel ring main designed to deliver gas at 7bar pressure, at a flow rate of 20l/s (71 m3h), direct to 40 drops within the TIG welding process area.
Furthermore, Wearside Pneumatics would also install a Unistrut channel containment at a height of nine metres, sited between the plant’s overhead crane system and the factory roof space.
The whole project required close coordination with the timing and progress of the new facility’s capital plant installations and was completed over a total period of twelve months.
Although galvanised steel compressed air pipework has been the industry standard for many years, major industry players worldwide like Hitachi Rail are replacing it with Atlas Copco’s AIRnet – a lightweight, durable aluminium/polymer component network which, by minimising pressure drop penalties, contributes substantially to energy savings, air quality and production efficiency.
The lightweight network system of corrosion-resistant aluminium pipes, together with self-aligning, fully sealed polymer fittings with integrated O-rings, are said to eliminate the possibility of costly leaks.
Size for size, AIRnet pipework, constructed in ISO 8573-1certified 1:2:0 class aluminium, weighs five times less than its steel equivalent. It is extremely robust and quick and easy to install. Fitting the pipework takes about one third of the time compared to that for a conventional system. Also, there is no time-consuming screw cutting and no need for any special tools or lifting equipment. AIRnet pipes are pushed into the polymer fitting, tightened by hand and secured with a spanner. When the aluminium AIRnet pipe is cut to size, there is no risk of corrosion of the exposed metal and thus no risk of leakage.
In the same way as the AIRnet aluminium compressed air network, the new fabrication area’s 35mm argon supply ring main is constructed in EN10088 standard stainless steel with push fit connection to achieve a non-corrosive, durable system that does not affect the quality of the gases transported. This minimises maintenance costs and the costs related to protection of downstream equipment, processes, and applications. The system is conceived to offer high performance over decades that assists in achieving strict quality control within production operations.