HEIDENHEIM, Germany,
July 28, 2009
(Press Release) -
TissueFlex D2 has been instrumental in helping to achieve a top speed of 1,800 m/min on PM 1 at Wepa Mainz in Germany. Furthermore, average production speed was increased to 1,700 m/min and daily production of 175 tonnes was maintained.
PM 1 is a 5.30 m wide C-Wrap machine and was taken over by Wepa in 2006. Bathroom towel and creped handtowel at a grammage between 17-20 g/m² are produced at speeds up to 1,800 m/min.
The top speed of 1,800 m/min was reached on April 22/23, 2008 and held over 48 hours. TissueFlex D2 did not show any limitations under these conditions. The targetted dewatering capacity and the specific paper quality parameters were achieved.
Besides this success other goals were the increase of average production speed and daily production. TissueFlex D2 was vital to the success due to its outstanding energy-related performance. PM 1 can now be operated at constant level of steam pressure in the Yankee cylinder while the burner temperatures has been reduced. The base structure of the felt supports even pressure distribution and contributes to uniform cross paper profiles. The double layer baseweave construction with pyramidal batt structure was developed specially for this machine to build up the highest possible capillarity attraction and dewatering capacity. It also provides constant high dewatering capacity and is easy to clean over the felt lifecycle. Furthermore, the fast and effective response to high pressure cleaning ensures the highest possible performance by keeping the running parameters at a constant level leading to significant savings in water and energy. This reduces costs on PM 1 and is positive for the environment.
Several TissueFlex D2 felts have been used to date, all having been run to planned stops with life potential remaining and all having achieved repeatable performances relating to quality and energy savings.
Hans Dieter Schuhmacher, production manager at PM 1 summarizes the achieved results: " During recent years we ran tests on various designs in cooperation with Voith Paper Fabric & Roll Systems. TissueFlex D2 proved to be the most efficient felt type for our machine."
Since the 1990s Voith Paper Fabric & Roll Systems has worked closely with the production team on PM 1 to show our long-term partnership and cooperation built on trust.
