Located in Silver Creek, New York, S. Howes Inc. was established in 1856 as a leading designer and manufacturer of processing equipment. One of the first pieces of equipment manufactured by S. Howes was grain cleaning equipment. In fact, they were once the world's largest manufacturer of such machinery.

Since that time, the company has built on its knowledge of mechanical engineering and manufacturing to diversify its product line by developing process equipment designs used in modern plants. Fred Mertz, a Buffalo native who returned to the region in 2006, now leads and co-owns the firm. Today S. Howes designs and manufacturers numerous types of processing equipment, including: thermal screw conveyors, mixers and blenders, separators, size reducers, grain cleaners and accessories for a wide variety of products and processing industries.

S. Howes strives to maintain its reputation as a leading supplier and provider of high-quality equipment and superior customer service. In addition to having an equipment testing laboratory in its facility since 2006, the firm has been working to identify better ways to ensure product performance and reliability. Existing design methods using simplified lumped-element estimates of thermal conduction are not adequate to ensure that a manufactured system will meet the customer's performance specifications. 

So S. Howes partnered with UB to develop and test a rigorous computational model to accurately predict conveyor performance, allowing the company to compete more effectively in the custom conveyor marketplace. 

Under the direction of UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) professor Edward Furlani, a computational model is being developed to simulate the performance of a typical thermal screw conveyor. The model is based on a computational fluid dynamics analysis that accounts for the movement of product mass through the conveyor and the heat transfer between the conveyor and the product. Using geometric representations of the conveyor components, the model produces a thermal-fluidic analysis that simulates device performance. With the guidance of Andrew Olewnik, SEAS director of experiential learning programs, UB engineering students are validating this analysis through field experiments. The resulting model will be a valuable tool that will allow S. Howes to better meet customer expectations. 

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