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RNS Industrial Design Ltd
 
Main Business Activity: Designer and manufacturer of industrial machinery

Sector: Industrial machinery design

Knowledgebase Organisation: Queen Mary University of London
“It has been a very happy and successful collaboration, they provided some great advice and we found we could talk the same language and work together closely”.

“Without the project it would have all been far more complicated and expensive to arrive at this point, maybe not even possible”.

Speaking about the outcomes from the project Ross says “It has helped establish our business. Although we haven’t made an impact yet, the project has made a real contribution to our future marketing, which is great”.
  • A greater enhanced and established reputation in the industry,
  •  A new innovative product,
  • Further product design plans,
  • An established and strong relationship with Queen Mary University of London.

Main Business Activity - Design of efficient and environmentally friendly industrial machinery

Project Outline - Providing support in the production and trial of a product prototype leading to the successful launch of the 'Waste Reducing Saw for Hot Aluminium'

 

RNS Industrial Design Ltd recently downsized and is re-focusing on designing machines that are more efficient and environmentally friendly. The company has also recently made a technical breakthrough for a machine that cuts aluminium at high temperatures with less waste.

Ross Capuzza, Managing Director of RNS Industrial Design Ltd, used to run a much larger engineering company in the 1990s which produced machinery for the worldwide aluminium extrusion industry. However, its sales were a victim of the UK not joining the European Monetary Union. “This hit us hard”, says Ross. He was forced to close the manufacturing side of the business and focus on the design side, which grew into the current business.

It was through Ross’s industry knowledge and experience that he spotted an opportunity for a new generation of environmentally friendly aluminium cutting machines and he set about designing them. The breakthrough came when Ross designed a machine with blades that cut narrower slots in the aluminium, producing 65% less swarf, the discarded aluminium shavings. Less wastage means less energy spent collecting and re-melting the swarf back into metal in a furnace. This therefore reduces both the carbon footprint and pollution levels because the re-melting process consumes significant energy and produces chemicals that can cause acid rain.  

Ross’s next challenge was to design a machine for cutting aluminium when it is hot. “Extruding aluminium through dye is a bit like pushing toothpaste through a tube”, he explains. The process works best when you heat the aluminium to a temperature of around four hundred degrees. However, when the aluminium is hot it sticks to the blades of a cutting machine. Ross wanted to find a way to inhibit this pick up process and to design a saw that would cut efficiently at high temperature.

The Knowledgebase Collaboration project supported a technical feasibility study, some product prototyping and field trials. The ‘Waste Reducing Saw for Hot Aluminium’ study was carried out with the help of Xiao Guo, professor of materials at Queen Mary, University of London. “Queen Mary’s were very good, they gave us answers to specific problems without making our design complicated”, says Ross. Between them they arrived at the solution of a blade with a coating that allows it to continue to cut efficiently at the high temperatures required with the minimum of pick up.

RNS has already had great success with their new saw and have licensed it to a German company. They are also embarking on a further project to design a machine that is attached to the saw itself and recycles swarf. Not only have they had commercial success but Ross also comments “I’m known around the industry now as an innovator and problem solver, it’s raised my profile and the profile of the company”.