Spaans Babcock have been awarded a multi £million pound project to design, manufacture andinstall Archimedes screws in a new pumping station which when completed will be the largest of its type in the world.

The project has been awarded to Spaans by Black & Veatch who are the principle contractor for a major refurbishment of Yorkshire Water’s Bransholme surface water pumping station. The company are to install eight screw pumps in the new pumping station, 2 duty screws 2.1metres diameter and six Storm Water screws each of which are 3.75 metres diameter, are over 20 metres in length and weigh more than 55 tonnes each.

The storm water screws will each have 560 kW main drive motors and have a capacity of close to 4,000 l/s each, meaning each of the six large screws can lift 4 tonnes or 880 gallons per second.

Spaans Babcock are the only Screw pump manufacturer with their own UK based project management and service network. The company who operate out of their centrally located base in Heywood are on framework agreements or have nominated supplier status for many of the UK water companies and have been installing and maintaining Archimedes screw pumps for them and the Environment agency for around 50 years.

Archimedes screws are ideal for this application as the large flights and clearances allow the screws to handle the debris often found in storm water without blocking. The other significant advantage is that the pumps can be run dry, this means they can be tested periodically without flow. Spaans are installing monitoring systems which will analyse the equipment under both loaded and no-load conditions.

Yorkshire Water selected the screw pumps due to their capability pumping larger volumes of water very efficiently and their robustness and long term reliability. When completed the new pumping station will help to alleviate flooding problems in Hull.