Oldcastle Infrastructure is an industry leader in engineered building solutions. Offering more than 16,000 pipe, precast, stormwater, enclosure, and building accessory products, everything we make is designed to connect communities and improve how the world works. In July 2023, Oldcastle Infrastructure acquired Hydro International allowing us to significantly expand our solutions portfolio in stormwater and wastewater treatment.
Pioneers of vortex technologies in liquid/solid separation
Hydro International’s products have evolved over the last 50 years from simple vortex overflows to the advanced hydrodynamic vortex separators and complementary technologies of today. Hydro’s founding father, Bernard Smisson, designed the very first vortex overflow in England in the 1960s. Faced with space constraints while trying to construct a conventional side weir overflow, he developed a circular weir overflow configuration based on a vortex flow regime. This first-generation separator was found to effectively retain 70% of the pollution load. As a result, hydrodynamic vortex separation technology was born.
In the early 1970s, Smisson was invited to the United States as an advisor to the APWA and EPA, which resulted in a series of projects that culminated in the development of the swirl and helical-bend flow regulators/settleable-solids concentrators and the swirl degritter. He later returned to the United Kingdom to continue his pioneering research on vortex technology where he addressed the issues of high headloss and solids deposition and refined the design to further improve performance. This low-energy rotary flow separator device was subsequently patented and commercialized. In 1980 Hydro International was formed to promote the hydrodynamic vortex separator and vortex flow control technology around the world.
The significance and simplicity of the swirl degritter, which harnessed the energy in a flow stream to separate solids in an all-hydraulic separator with no moving parts, was not lost on a young Ph.D. researcher in America. In the early 1970s, Dr. George Wilson, founder of Eutek Systems, which is now a part of Hydro International, was hired by the National Canners Association to develop a product to remove silt from vegetable process water in order to keep sediment out of the collection system. By literally turning the swirl concentrator upside down and accelerating the velocity, the TeaCup classifier — a high-energy rotary flow separator device with very high removal efficiencies for fine sand particles — was created. Through constant research and continuous development, Hydro International’s products have evolved from direct descendants of those first-generation efforts into the state-of-the-art water management technology solutions of today.
Oldcastle’s commitment to performance
Oldcastle’s scale of operations has allowed us to significantly expand on and retain Hydro International’s commitment to technical expertise. As part of Oldcastle Infrastructure, we continue to study, test, model, optimize and innovate the application of vortex flow regimes now at an even more comprehensive level. We conduct detailed investigations of low, medium and high energy rotary flow regimes, optimal volute configurations and arrangements for flow modifying static internal components. Drawing on our deep understanding of the fundamentals of vortex motion and the forces involved allows us to guarantee performance of our technologies and transform concepts into products that address immediate and long-term needs in the water sector.
Oldcastle upgraded Hydro’s world-class hydraulic test facilities to enable us to experiment with full-scale prototypes for water treatment technologies to continuously improve performance as well as develop new products. As one of the earliest adopters of computational fluid dynamics to model liquid/solids separation in the water industry, our unparalleled CFD expertise allows us to assess flow patterns and velocities within systems and treatment processes.
Proven performance
The proof, however, comes in real-world results. The performance of our technologies have been field verified by independent agencies allowing us to clearly state expected removal efficiencies. Our customers benefit from low-maintenance technologies that require little power and, most important, achieve the promised results.
Today, Oldcastle is a truly international company, which provides localized engineering solutions, helping our customers achieve their water management goals with a broad range of vortex and complementary technologies.
