Fast track to handling safety
June 1st 2008 Curtis Instruments has
solved a challenging
technical situation involving
safety equipment on board
Eurostar trains in
conjunction with two other
suppliers.
Cornwall-based Safety
Trolley Systems was
approached by fire
extinguisher manufacturer,
Kidde Graviner, with a
problem involving the
handling of large and
heavy fire fighting
cylinders, used on Eurostar
trains. The 350kg cylinders
are sent to Kidde Graviner
for refurbishment and
testing, during
which they are
picked up and rotated in
either direction and the
contents agitated whilst
being filled. The cylinders
have to be rotated +10°
and -10° from the
horizontal continually
whilst the filling
takes place.
When the
cylinder is full
the operator
takes
manual
control of
the rotation,
and it is
accurately
weighed. This
would be done by a load
cell system built in to the
head. STS turned to Curtis
Instruments for the
electronic programmable
control system.
"We have been using
Curtis control equipment on
all of our products for many
years so we knew that they
would be able to develop
the control system we
needed," says Simon Studer,
STS engineering director.
Curtis met with STS to
establish the specification
and function needed of the
control system. This
culminated in Curtis
supplying two control boxes
with specially written
software. More articles from Curtis Instruments (UK) Ltd.: | 
