Mueller to build brass foundry in IL
Mueller Water Products is building one of the world’s largest modern finished goods brass foundries in Decatur, Illinois. The facility is expected to employ 250 workers to help increase production capacity and meet the growth within the water infrastructure industry. Mueller was founded in Decatur, Illinois, in 1857 by German immigrant Hieronymus Mueller. Building the new brass foundry in the same city that Mueller was born is a full circle moment in the company’s 162 years of history.
FLOMEC flowmeter helps save costs for university
Great Plains Industries Inc. (GPI)’s FLOMEC QS200 Insertion Ultrasonic Flowmeter is designed to support commercial irrigation applications and measures flow rates as low as 0.22 gpm. It provides leak detection down to 0.1 fps. The University of Tennessee uses both drip irrigation and standard spray lines. Seeping valves were creating mud holes throughout the campus. The leaks were also causing water to run over sidewalks and/or into parking lots. However, the 1-inch impeller flowmeters on the drip irrigation lines showed no readings. This made it difficult to pinpoint the leaking valves. There was also a suspicion of missed flow readings on the standard spray lines. In addition, the university had to replace units as they seized up. The FLOMEC QS200 has no moving parts so there is no mechanical friction, allowing it to measure much lower flows than mechanical impeller meters. The QS200 helped the university prevent problems with seepage and runoff, resulting in lower costs in repairing these areas. The new flowmeters notify them if too much water is flowing. The university now uses the QS200 on 50% of its drip irrigation lines and 50% of its standard spray lines, with plans to retrofit more in the future.
Dresser Natural Gas Solutions appoints sales manager
Dresser Natural Gas Solutions, a provider of measurement, instrumentation and piping solutions to the natural gas distribution and transmissions markets, appointed Chris Watkins as district sales manager for its Industrial Products Group. Watkins will be responsible for managing channel partners for the RCS actuator brand. Watkins brings nearly three decades of sales and management experience in the oil and gas industry as well as industrial markets including power, water/wastewater, mining and industries using chemical injection pumps and skids. He has been involved with coal-bed methane projects in the U.S. as well as Australia, India, South Africa, China and Indonesia.
