Our Managing Director, Professor Andrew Yule, provides specialist engineering consultancy via hCPF Research Ltd that was founded in 1979 in Manchester UK.

This consultancy service is dedicated to working with industry to solve problems and develop or improve devices that exploit fluid mechanics; especially sprays, atomization or two-phase flow.

A very extensive experience, and strong scientific and practical backgrounds, gives particular expertise in trouble-shooting devices, problem solving, developing and interpreting measurement and performance programmes, IPR creation and device design for ease of manufacture

Projects range from many carrying out  improvement of consumer aerosols, to designing high throughput cooling water sprayers for industrial gas turbines, and from internal ballistics gas flow measurements to designing coating systems for cereals.

These pages describe capabilities and experience of Professor Yule and give examples of previous work for many industries and also for government bodies

After looking through this material please do not hesitate to make contact for informal discussions, at no cost, in order to establish whether we can assist you.

HIGH FLOW RATE FINE WATER SPRAYS
This project involved working with a client to propose, construct and test a novel air assist atomizer capable of atomizing around one litre/min water to 15 microns mass median diameter, but with severe restrictions on air pressure and flow rate. A satisfactory device was developed with a performance that far outstripped available commercial atomizers.

REDUCING OR REMOVING VOC IN AEROSOLS
Projects have been carried out for several companies and institutes on different aspects and approaches to producing household aerosol sprays but with minimum, or no, VOC content in propellant or contents. A common feature has been technology transfer from other spray fields, to improve the efficiency, and thus reduce the energy requirements, of the insert geometry. Around one dozen patents have arisen from these projects, with devices now being launched on the market.

DESIGN OF SPRAY TEST APPARATUS
In this project the detailed design was developed for a company, for a spray test apparatus for measuring drop size and patternation for sprays from a wide range of atomizer types. The apparatus contained liquid pumping, traversing and spray collection facilities and utilised PDA, Malvern and other measurement techniques. The apparatus was constructed and is in routine use.

FLAMMABILITY OF SPRAYS OR AEROSOLS
Three major safety oriented projects have been carried out for major concerns, covering (a) the inert gas dilution requirements for avoiding flame propagation in aerosols of fuel, and (b) two projects on the ignitability of accidental sprays of hydraulic fluids. One of the latter projects led to the development of a new EU standard testing specification. The projects involved the design and construction of test apparatus and the carrying out of experiments in close cooperation with the sponsors.

FOOD COATING
Contributions have been made to several projects aimed at optimising particular coating procedures in the food industry. Background experience from several spraying fields led to achieving improved evenness of coating and with minimal overspray. An important feature was the choice of optimum spraying atomizers, with experiments to ensure this optimisation.