The scope of the project involved re-engineering the pump’s existing 60 year-old white metal thrust bearing, which required new bearing thrust calculations for a set of bearings with an asset life of 20 years. The Deritend Gorup specialise in repairing and refurbishing a wide range of industrial equipment. Thames Water commissioned them to modernise a series of pumps that had been in operation for 50 to 60 years.

Failure and high levels of maintenance lead to this project being commissioned; the main element that needed attention was the thrust bearings. The project had an urgency to it due to the pump station’s usage meaning it needed to be back online quickly. Apexis Engineering produced models to enable the team at Deritend to visualise our proposed layout and we provided validation of the design that had been suggested by Deritend’s engineering team. With a detailed model which was representative of ‘real life’ it was easier for the team to make things offsite and bring them to the pump room to install.

The project required a lot of trouble shooting and finding the best solutions as well as optimising materials and standardising common parts plus eliminating the items not really required making the installation far more cost effective and quicker.