Experience and success with installing a vacuum blower

In times of growing sustainability awareness, resource conservation and simultaneously rising energy costs, the “PM1 vacuum system conversion” project was created. To date, five water ring pumps have been used for the various suction points in the wire and press sections. These have proven over the years to be a reliable and easy-care means of generating vacuum. Rising operating costs combined with improvements in efficiency and high resource consumption have prompted the company to rethink the drainage strategy on the PM1 and replace the previous complex installation with a vacuum blower.

As a basis for the conversion, a detailed vacuum audit was carried out by Runtech at the beginning of the project. As a result, this confirmed the project's great potential for improvement with significant energy savings. In addition, a positive side effect was shown in terms of water consumption and waste heat transfer into the operational wastewater. The decision to implement the project was made quickly due to the expected benefits and a positive economic assessment.

During the project phase, Munksjö and Runtech worked hand-in-hand from kick-off to commissioning. The very limited space on site presented the project team with major challenges. The final installation location was therefore defined with the help of 3D scans of the existing building structure and the fan model was integrated into the 3D scan. This was necessary because the limited space made it very difficult to insert the individual components and required a change in the design of the separator. The separator was redesigned into several individual pieces so that it could be transported to the later operating location and reassembled there.

In addition to increased installation effort, the project was fraught with a certain amount of risk and was “doomed to success” because redundant installation was not possible due to the space available. All five existing water ring pumps were completely dismantled before installing the blower. There was therefore no convenient fall-back option. However, the positive experiences during a recent installation at a sister factory allayed any concerns in this regard.

Careful detailed engineering in advance and a successful conversion phase ultimately guaranteed smooth commissioning of the turbo blower - similar to a plug-and-play installation. After just a few hours of operation, the papermakers were able to see for themselves the advantages of the unit, which led to a number of improvements; Above all, the extremely efficient operation of the vacuum system, which has not yet been consistently pursued with the large range of decorative papers.

Significant improvements were achieved shortly after the blower was put into operation. In further optimization steps, the vacuum levels were successively adapted to the requirements of the production spectrum, which resulted in savings of around 60% compared to operating with water ring pumps.