Overview

The Carolina Paper Company (CPC), a 13-year old firm based in North Carolina, re-shapes large parent paper rolls into usable paper products including paper towels, napkins and toilet paper. CPC has a strong commitment to green business policies, designing everything from pallet configuration to product packaging to minimize waste, and working with paper vendors to reduce toxins. As a full line supplier of paper products, CPC emphasizes producing high quality paper products using sustainable methods.

The Challenge

As Carolina Paper Company’s Maintenance Manager, Ronald Laun is responsible for factory upkeep, preventative maintenance and ensuring optimal performance of all machines. The process of turning 55”diameter parent rolls into a small enough size to be used as paper towels and toilet paper involves rewinding as well as cutting the paper. Given the difference in size between the parent rolls and the finished product, the cutting process is extensive and can generate levels of heat which hinder equipment performance. Laun explains “In cutting our paper logs, we use a 40-inch diameter circular blade to saw through logs from 4” to 12” diameter at up to 50 cuts per minute. The sawing process creates a lot of friction and heat. Once you reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the blade begins to wobble and at that point it’s unsafe to continue cutting anymore. Our production was slowed down because we could only make a certain number of cuts to the log before having to take a break to permit the blade to cool.” By incorporating Vortec Cold Air Guns into their production, CPC was able to improve production by making, on average, 42% more cuts.“Another positive was that by keeping the blade cooler we didn’t scorch the ends of the final product. So in the end we increased production and quality.”

The Solution

Laun’s previous experience working in the textile field led him to see a possibility for enhancing this cutting process through the use of air products. He notes that “I knew if we could keep the blade cool, we could continue cutting for a longer period of time and that would improve production times. I went looking online for an air products company. I compared a few vendors, and Vortec stood out as innovators in their field—they pioneered the idea of vortex technology, so it made sense to go with them.”

Upon contacting Vortec, Laun was pleased that their engineers immediately grasped Carolina Paper Company’s need and were able to work with him to customize a solution. The Vortec 630 Cold Air Gun was retrofitted into the design of the log saw used to cut the large logs of paper. The cold, clean air supplied by the Vortec 630 Cold Air Gun guarantees that the temperature of the cutting blade remains cool enough to continue cutting for longer periods of time. Additionally, the dual nozzle enabled cooling of both sides of the blade, further improving the effectiveness of the Cold Air Gun in cooling the hot blade.

Conclusion

“Vortec’s technology is excellent and their people are very easy to work with” says Laun. “We are very pleased with our association with them.” After using Vortec’s Cold Air Gun for 3 months, Laun notes he has already extolled the virtues of Vortec’s products to other companies: “One of our other equipment manufacturers was at the factory and I showed him the retrofitting along with the data about how much our production had improved. He was very impressed.”

How do you take large industrial equipment from 350 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in under 60 seconds?

This was the challenge faced by Anderson Machine Manufacturing, a Richmond, VA-based company which builds custom machines for a broad spectrum of industries and applications. In 2009, one of their clients, a multi national corporation, sought Anderson Machine’s aid in creating a machine to compress and cool the components of an industrial-size gear box shaft.

The client wanted extremely rapid cooling, so top of the line air equipment was a necessity. Since the components of the machine had to remain dry, mist cooling was not an option. Todd Anderson, Vice President and Mechanical Engineer at Anderson Machine, explains that “as a mechanical engineer, you know to do what you’re good at and find the best experts you can for other areas. We knew that in this case, meeting the client’s requirements meant finding an extremely high level of expertise in air technology.”

After learning about Vortec online, Anderson explained the machine his client sought. Vortec engineers analyzed the specifications Anderson provided and developed a solution. “Building as many different machines as we do, I deal with a lot of different vendors,” Anderson states. “With Vortec, they hit the ground running, grasping our needs right away instead of needing to have things explained to them twice. We told them how big the assembly was, what materials were involved and the timeframe. They performed the heat load calculations to determine which products would work, then sent a spreadsheet showing the products with the right cooling capacity.” By using four of Vortec’s model 610 Cold Air Guns, Anderson was able to deliver a machine which cooled the equipment quickly, meeting the client’s requirements.

Success breeds new challenges. Anderson’s clients were so pleased with the initial machine, that they requested a more advanced version. They wanted a machine capable of handling much larger pieces of equipment then their initial specifications had required. Anderson turned to Vortec for assistance in enhancing the design of the original machine to handle these new requirements.

Vortec’s engineers realized that, although the Cold Air Guns effectively cooled smaller equipment, a two-stage cooling process was necessary to bring down the temperature of the larger, denser equipment. They suggested that Anderson retrofit the machine, adding a preliminary cooling phase. Vortec also recommended shifting to the larger, more powerful model 630 Cold Air Guns rather than the smaller model 610’s which were originally used.

The 2-part cooling cycle necessary for the larger equipment involves using Vortec Curtain Transvector Air Knives to remove most of the heat, taking the temperatures of equipment from 350 to 150 degrees F. The Curtain Transvectors use compressed air, amplifying the air flow to rapidly dissipate heat by bringing more airflow (cubic feet perminute) to bear on the equipment. Curtain Transvector air knives bring more than three times the cooling capacity of standard nozzles. During this initial stage, machine operators can stop the process and take infrared temperature readings. In the second stage of the cooling process, four of Vortec’s Cold Air Guns model 630 cool the equipment, lowering the temperatures from 150 degrees F to under 110 degrees. The combination of the model 630 Cold Air Guns and Model 921 Curtain Transvector air knives bring the temperature of the large gear equipmentdown from 350 degrees to 100 degrees F in less than a minute.

“I give Vortec high marks,” Todd Anderson states. “When we presented them with an increased level of challenge based on our client’s new specs, they didn’t blink. The Vortec crew really has their heads screwed on right as far as interfacing with clients. And in addition to great products and an excellent understanding of technology, they also offer a very reasonable price.”

Overview

The global corporation MAG offers a comprehensive line of equipment and technologies serving a wide range of industries including aerospace, automotive and truck, heavy equipment, oil and gas, rail, solar energy, wind turbine production and general machining. Their services include process development, automated assembly, turning, milling, automotive powertrain production, composites processing, maintenance, automation and software development. The company has facilities in the Americas, Asia and Europe. The headquarters for MAG Americas is located in Erlanger, KY and they have five main production facilities in North America, including one located in Hebron, KY, which is the center of excellence for composites technology.

The Challenge

Milo Vaniglia is Senior Project Engineer at the Hebron facility where he directs mechanical design of new products. Vaniglia’s team developed the company’s VIPER® Fiber Placement Systems (FPS). This composite fiber placement machine combines the advantages of tape laying and filament winding with advanced computer control and software. The fiber-reinforced graphite composite parts the VIPER® produces offers significant advantages over metal for the aerospace industry. Essentially, the VIPER® provides an effective method to make graphite/epoxy one-piece structures for aerospace applications.

The VIPER® machines have seven separate axes of motion, making them particularly suited to highly contoured structures such as cowls, ducts, fuselage sections, pressure tanks, nozzle cones, tapered casings, fan blades, spars and “C” channels. In developing this innovative system, Vaniglia realized that a cooling component was essential to prevent the tow or ribbon of composite tape from adhering to itself prior to placement, thus guaranteeing wrinkle-free, near net shape lay-up. In providing its high-profile aerospace customers with this technology, MAG demands excellence of all the components used inthe VIPER® FPS. Vaniglia needed an air products company capable of meeting this challenge.

The Solution

Vaniglia chose Vortec because he was confident the company possessed the engineering expertise to meet the VIPER®’s need for cool air delivery. Vortec’s Cold Air Gun 610 converts compressed air into chilled air which conditions the pre-impregnated graphite fiber resin, resulting in the highest possible dexterity, flexibility and range for large to complex aerospace parts. “Vortec’s product makes it easier to dispense the pre-impregnated raw material,”Vaniglia notes.

How MAG Benefits From Vortec Products

“I have found Vortec to be very responsive to our needs,” Vaniglia observes. “They offer a product which is both consistent and versatile.” He notes that because the Vortec Cold Air Gun is so effective, MAG not only uses the product in all of the different models of VIPER® systems, but it has also increased the volume of Vortec products in each of these systems, using Cold Air Guns to cool other parts of the machine.

Conclusion

“We provide our clients with a high-quality machine, “Vaniglia states. “Vortec contributes a product which helps make our system excellent.“ The Senior Project Engineer, who has been using Vortec products since 1988, says he has found Vortec“very easy to work with. I would definitely recommend them.”