Resilient Air Dryer System

The Francis Crick Institute (the Crick) is planning to procure a Resilient Compressed Air Dryer System to reduce the moisture content of the compressed air supplied to a specialist facility from -40°C pressurised dew point (PDP) to a minimum level of -60°C PDP at 8-8.5 barg.

The Biomedical NMR Centre facility requiring the system will be equipped with five nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers. The air dryer system must be designed, installed and commissioned in the timeframe agreed with the contracting organisation, preferably before the end of the year.

The Crick is a newly created biomedical research institute formed by a consortium of UK’s most successful scientific and academic organisations. It will become the largest research institute in Europe; its iconic new site is currently being constructed next to St. Pancras International station in the heart of London, due to open in November 2015.

The compressed air entering the NMR facility is expected to be at a pressure of 8-8.5 barg, which will be dry to -40°C PDP. The air dryer system which is the subject of this tender is required to dry the air to -60°C PDP or better. The system must be capable of delivering at least 45m3/hour of dried air to the NMR facility. Resilience is a key part of our requirement. The system must be resilient with respect to failure of the main system component and designed to allow routine and non-routine maintenance operations without loss of supply. We envisage a duty/standby system consisting of a pair of desiccant dryers with appropriate valves, filters, and interconnections, with automatic switchover periodically and under fault conditions. However, we would welcome any proposal that meets our technical requirements. The whole system should be designed to provide the required resilience.

The scope of this tender is the supply, installation and commissioning of the system. Please note that signing of the Reciprocal Confidentiality Agreement (NDA) will be required to obtain the floor plans and drawings. Please contact: tenders@crick.ac.uk for a copy of NDA, the Crick’s Terms & Conditions and the detailed requirements of this opportunity. All queries related to this tender, should also be directed to: Tenders@crick.ac.uk.

The bidders are required to submit their bids to Tenders@crick.ac.uk.