FEATURE COMPRESSORS & COMPRESSED AIR
COMPRESSORS WEAVE THEIR WAY TO IMPROVED PRODUCTION
35th Anniversary These requirements were: • Sustained delivery pressure to the air
jet looms (7.6 bar.g at plant room exit), avoiding pressure dips during start-up and eliminating product spoilage. • Provide adequate compressor capacity to enable all 28 looms to operate required system capacity of 105 m³/min (3708 cfm) cubic feet per metre. • A compressed air management and
HPC’s improved compressor control has resulted in less downtime, less product spoilage and less noise in a textile weaving process
H
eathcoat Fabrics supplies precision engineered textiles for use in the
aerospace, marine, automotive, geotextiles and military industries. From off-the-shelf-fabrics to bespoke weaving solutions, Heathcoat’s mantra is very much a customer focussed approach enabling them to design, develop, test and deliver a wide variety of fabrics for a range of specialist applications. The 19 acre manufacturing plant in Devon carries out yarn processing, warping, weaving, knitting and finishing along with a range of sophisticated chemical enhancements, and these processes are supported by research laboratories and testing facilities. On-going investment in new plant and
equipment is important for any business and a new dry screw compressed air system supplied and installed by HPC Compressed Air Systems for Heathcoat Fabrics is a good example of this. This investment is helping to minimise production downtime, reduce product spoilage and resolve environmental noise issues arising from the limitations of the previous compressed air system. Textile weaving is a specialised, complex process and such is the quality of the process at Heathcoat, the weaving manufacturing environment requires consistent climate control with temperature and humidity to within 18 to 25ºC and 55-75% RH respectively. If the environment becomes too dry or too damp, it increases the strain on the delicate yarns which break, causing downtime and disruption. Fabrics are weaved from yarns on 28 air jet weaving
10 JUNE 2015 | PROCESS & CONTROL
looms operating 24/7, on a 4 shift basis. The looms are controlled and actuated by compressed air which needs to be both of consistent and high quality and delivered within very specific pressure bands. For example, if the compressed air pressure drops below 6.9 bar the loom automatically stops and the material relaxes. When the loom restarts, a visible line (an imperfection known as a start bar) has to then be identified by the loom operator to indicate the usable length of material, before the weaving process can continue. These issues were causing downtime and disruption, resulting in product spoilage and waste. Also, if multiple looms were starting, or stopping, at the same time, the result was high demand swings and system pressure drops, exacerbating the limitations of the existing compressed air system. Given the value and specialised types of
fabrics being produced by Heathcoat Fabrics, eliminating, or at least minimising product spoilage, is particularly important. There were also concerns regarding the excessive noise being generated by the previous compressed air installation, and inadequate ventilation in the compressor building caused over-heating in the summer months. This problem was partially solved by opening doors and windows, but amplified the noise problem. Following their decision to upgrade the previous compressor system, Heathcoat Fabrics approached HPC. Collaboration between the two companies resulted in a solution that met the key requirements.
The key objectives at Heathcoat Fabrics were: to resolve the issues of reliability; to improve control; reduce noise levels and to factor-in the need for higher volumes of compressed air due to possible future expansion. Meeting these objectives, the HPC compressed air system has been operating reliably and successfully for some time, delivering the required volumes of compressed air and most importantly, within the critical pressure bands required by the air jet looms
control system to intelligently select compressors to avoid pressure dips on loom start-up. • Reduce overall plant noise levels, so that factory boundary noise readings were well within the recommended environmental limits. Following the process of testing and experimentation, the recommendation from HPC was for a new system comprising: 3 x HPC KAESER DSG 290-2 SFC (air cooled) 200 KW 10 bar - dry screw compressors, and the retention of an existing 160 KW compressor to be used as standby, 2 x HPC KAESER TI 601 FE refrigerant dryers, 1 x 5000l and 1 x 3000l vertical capacity air receivers, for compressed air storage and SAM (SIGMA Air Manager) Compressor control and management system. This new system was designed to
provide Heathcoat Fabrics with compressed air capacity up to 112m³/min (3955 cfm) and maintain constant delivery pressure to the air jet loom inlets of >7.6 bar.g (thanks to HPC’s management system). The HPC SAM (SIGMA Air Manager)
system is designed to ensure that compressor delivery volume and energy consumption can be precisely adjusted to match actual demand, optimising energy efficiency throughout the entire compressed air system. This level of control and monitoring will enable Heathcoat to maintain the minimum pressure requirements to the air jet loom inlets at all times, regardless of the demand swings and system pressure drops and eliminate the problems of looms stopping. David Yates, reliability engineer at
Heathcoat Fabrics, said: “The performance of the new HPC KAESER system has exceeded our
expectations...The way the system shadows the pressure requirements is absolutely brilliant and this has meant a significant reduction in the problems we were experiencing with air jet looms stopping, helping us to minimise disruption and product spoilage.” He added: “The system is much quieter than we believed possible and this has resolved the noise issues we were experiencing.”
HPC Compressed Air Systems
www.hpccompressors.co.uk Enter 209
/ PROCESS&CONTROL
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