Author: European Springs Web Team

The team over at our European Springs London site were recently given some amazing news – they had been accredited with the ISO 14001:2015 certificate. This was in response to their effective and extremely successful Environmental Management System that they had introduced at their London based site in Beckenham.

What is the Certificate?

ISO 14001:2015 is accredited due to an effective Environmental Management System, a system that is described as being a “standard of requirements” that define and establish how companies can reduce their environmental impact through the operations that they carry out every day. It establishes both targets and objectives that need to be met in order to maintain compliance to the certificate.

What are the Benefits?

The idea behind a successful Environmental Management System is to reduce the impact on the environment, such as minimising waste, reducing pollution and correctly using both energy and raw materials.

There are lots of different reasons for why it’s beneficial for companies to seek the certification. These include:

  • Improving the reputation of your company.
  • Demonstrate your compliance with both regulatory and statutory requirements.
  • Gives you a financial advantage due to reduced costs.
  • Encourages more efficient environmental performance.

How Will It Benefit European Springs?

Through gaining the certification, European Springs will use the standards outlined to help them improve their resource efficiency, reduce waste and manage environmental obligations consistently. This will help to promote an ethical standing within European Springs.

We would like to offer huge congratulations to all of our team members over in London – it’s a fantastic achievement that we hope we can follow on from very soon. In fact, ensuring that all of our sites continue to develop and progress is something that we are committed to doing, which is why Leeds and Cornwall will be also working towards achieving the ISO certification. Well done to everyone involved!

If you would like to learn more about this certification, please don’t hesitate to contact us today on 0044 7889171165.

 

 

It has been a number of years since the British triumph at the 2012 Olympics. Since then, the Olympic Stadium has been used for a number of amazing events that have lived up to the magnificence of the venue. Now, it will be the home to the football team of West Ham for the next ninety-nine years. It is a deal that will see the stadium be the venue for football tournaments on all scales, drawing in Hammers and other football enthusiasts from across the world.

In the face of this, changes needed to be brought to the stadium in order to give it the West Ham flare and stamp their own mark on the venue. So, how did European Springs help to transform the Olympic Stadium into a home that West Ham could be proud of?

Repurposing the Olympic Stadium

London Stadium

 

The stadium has faced an impressive design overall in order to adapt it to its new purpose. Some of this work was undertaken by Fabric Architecture. A company that specialises in bespoke fabric structures, tailored to the needs of their clients and of the highest quality. They were tasked with designing and creating a large scale fabric canopy in order to cover the retractable seating inside of the stadium. The impressive creation was made in the distinctive colours of West Ham. Fabric Architecture turned to European Springs & Pressings to create a spring solution that matched the engineering requirements of the project.

Solutions Sprung

Retractable canopy

 

The solution was found in a new Fortuna coiling machine that our Cornish branch of European Springs had recently invested in. It allows for an expanded capability between 0.3mm to 26mm; an expansion which has opened up new markets across many industries. This meant that when tasked with Fabric Architecture’s requirements, we were able to work fast and efficiently in order to create a solution for a system that dissipates the load from the canopies.

A personal touch was added to the springs for this new chapter in West Ham’s history. The springs were coated in the claret colour that the club is famous for – a flourish to the end of a very exciting project for the European Springs team.

If, like us here at European Springs, you are inspired by the possibilities for future amazing projects in a wide variety of sectors, why not get in touch? We are always open to new collaborations and would love to share your enthusiasm and ideas. Contact us today to find out how we can help you!

There are many different types of springs, each with its own physical properties. Knowing which is the right one for your project can be challenging, then, as they can have very different applications due to this, which means that in order to make the right choice you need to know their key features.

Picking out the right spring for your project becomes a lot easier when you know its characteristics and common uses. Here at European Springs Ireland we aim to help you make the right decision at all times, so please don’t hesitate to talk to us if you wish to learn more about what we can do for you!

Needless to say, here at European Springs Ireland, we are passionate about the field of engineering, and the many ways it can impact for positive progress and overall benefit to humankind. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of medical research.

Therefore we were thrilled to learn about the pioneering work being done by engineering researchers at the Polytechnique Montreal Nanorobotics Laboratory. Here, tests on mice with colorectal tumours have successfully used natural nanorobotic agents to travel through the bloodstream and target those cancerous tumours.

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This precision injection method does no harm to healthy tissue and significantly reduces the toxic effect of strong drugs on the rest of the body.

How Do The Nanobots Function?

Self-propellent force is created by composition of millions of flagellated bacteria. The force is strong enough to allow travel by the most direct path deep into the area requiring treatment. On entering the tumour, the nanorobotic agents detect the hypoxic (oxygen deficient) zones and release the drug. Hypoxic zones are prone to being oxygen starved by aggressive cancer cells, and even radiotherapy has not been able to effectively reach them.

How Do They Navigate?

The travelling bacteria move in the direction of a magnetic field, controlled by computer, steered by a chain of magnetised nanoparticles. They are assisted by a sensor measuring the oxygen concentration levels, and this guides them to the worst affected areas, and allows them to remain there.

What Are The Future Implications?

The most exciting prospect is that chemotherapy, known to be destructive to the whole body, could use these nanorobots to target areas of disease. This would radically reduce harmful side effects and potentially prove more therapeutic. It also means drug doses for humans could be substantially reduced. Sylvain Martel, who has been leading this research, believes that this new innovation with nanotransporters could lead to more advances in engineering for medical intervention methods.

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Bacteria Can Replicate Artificial Nanorobots

The breakthrough in this use of bacteria opens the way for more research possibilities. It begs the question of what other agents could be synthesised for such therapeutic ends. Any discovery which challenges the toxic misery caused by chemotherapy is very exciting news indeed.

If, like us here at European Springs, you are inspired by the possibilities for future engineering progress in medicine and other areas, why not get in touch? We are always open to new collaborations and would love to share your enthusiasm and ideas. Contact us today to find out how we can help you!

The 3D printer has revolutionised society over the past few years. But, the extent of what these wondrous machines can do is still being tested on a daily basis. One such test, recently, has been the printing of food. This may seem like something that is straight out of a Star Trek film rather than reality, but it has actually been developed and is being adapted daily to achieve better results.

3D printer and hamburger, concept for food printing.

But, what is the future of actually printing food and how will this affect the food industry in the future?

The Difficulties

Of course, this is not a development that has come easily. 3D printers deposit layer upon layer to build up an object, but the food 3D printer is a more complicated issue. Crystallised sugar can be formed in layers in just the same way that a 3D printer works, while chocolate can be dispensed with precision syringes to make complicated designs, and a final method involves compressing fresh ingredients to make a wide variety of different food products. Most of the current 3D food printers currently in existence use a variety of these methods in order to create food.

However, none of these methods are yet capable of making overly complicated food products as you might see in sci-fi movies. That will be many years to come, according to experts. However, this has not stopped people from adopting these methods, making way for a future where 3D food printers will, presumably, dominate the food industry as a standard.

Gourmet Food

The world of gourmet food has already begun to see the development of 3D printed food. Moulds can be made in order to help precision needs, such as for more complicated designs in baking, which makes the process of creating complicated gourmet food that much easier. Many in this high-end, specialist, part of the industry expects 3D printing to become a major component of the industry in the years to come.

Creating food is an art form, experimental and constantly changing. It can be as precise as the springs produced here at European Springs or as wild as the most modern of art. The future of 3D printing may mean that further food experiments can revolutionise the industry on a whole new level.

Benefits

There are many benefits to the development of 3D printing in the food industry. This is especially the case of the ability to reduce malnourishment in the world, whether that is in the elderly and young children who cannot eat whole foods or in third world countries. 3D printers can produce a mix of soft foods, full of nutrients that will help the most unfortunate in the world for relatively reduced costs.

3D printing of food also helps to reduce waste in the future. This is a major concern considering that the food wastage of the world, in comparison to what is being made, is relatively high and often cited as needing to be reduced. It will, theoretically, also make some unappetising food substances more palatable to people in order to use products that otherwise would go to waste, helping both people and the environment.

The world of 3D printing is ever changing and opens up a world of possibilities – if someone has an idea 3D printing may one day be able to print it. Are you looking for the perfect spring for your printing project? Contact our expert team today and we will be delighted to assist you!

If there is a love and hate phase in any design process in engineering, that is, for sure, the moment when the prototype has to be tested. No matter how wonderful the ideas to solve a particular problem are, the final product has to be actually useful in the real world. Testing the prototype is the moment where all engineers – no matter if they are beginners or if they already have an extensive career – are ready to learn from their mistakes. But without this, machines as fascinating as the 3D printer and the NiLiBoRo robot wouldn’t exist!

 

1. Real People

Chances are that your final product will be used by those who don’t necessarily have such an insight on the particularities of this item as you do. That is why you need to test the prototype with real people – and not colleagues. In this way, you’ll be sure they find it useful.

You may be wondering what kind of people you need – age, gender, geography – but nothing is as important as bringing participants who are knowledgeable of the domain or industry you are working with, as they are the potential audience for the final product.

2. Different tests for different results

What do you want to discover about your prototype? To make sure that not a single second is wasted during this phase, you have to design a set of instructions you will deliver to the people testing the prototype, so they do exactly what you need to see if the product has accomplished all that was designed for.

Direct

Direct tests are those in which you tell your participants the exact action they need to perform. They must do what they are told.

Scenario

In a scenario test you allow people more freedom. You just provide them with general guidelines and then they can use the prototype as they think it is best.

Closed

Closed tasks are those in which success can just be reached under specific conditions and anything else will result in failure. They are ideal if you want to test a specific function of your prototype.

Open-Ended

These are tasks that can be completed in many different ways. They are good if you want to know how the minds of your potential users work.

3. Be Aware of Any Regulation

This phase is also the point to make sure that the product you are creating can exist according to the relevant regulations and legislations, such as the British standards. This will assure that the item that will be manufactured in the future is completely safe.

 

4. Communicate with Your Clients

The participants who have been testing your prototype may be happy with it, you may be happy with it, but what about the clients you are creating this for? It is very important that you also invite them to see the prototype and listen to their impressions. If they are not pleased with the design or any of the functions, you are still at a stage when these things can be easily amended.

In most cases, it doesn’t mean that your product is wrong; sometimes clients change their minds on very specific aspects. Communication is the key to make sure everyone is happy with the final outcome.

 

Here at European Springs Ireland we are experts on designing the best springs and pressings. Check out our catalogue and don’t hesitate in contacting our friendly team with any enquiry, we’ll be delighted to help!

 

 

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