Knauf upgrades compressed air system

Queensferry, UK - Knauf Insulation has instaled new compressed air equipment as part of a £10-million upgrade at its rock mineral wool production facility at Queensferry in North Wales in which all parts of its production line were either replaced or upgraded.

Compressed air is utilised for the air-atomised binder sprays and for the reverse jet bag filters that handle fibre and dust, including recycling systems. It plays an important role in the plant’s packaging machinery functions and for general plant air required for operating pneumatic cylinders, actuators for valves, dampers, bin doors, diverter chutes and so on.

Since compressed air does not come into direct contact with finished product within any stage of Knauf Insulation’s Queensferry production operations, it was decided some years back that two Atlas Copco oil-injected rotary screw compressors would fulfil the process need and were selected to replace the existing plant. The company entered into a five-year lease contract for the installation of a GA75 Full Feature machine and a GA75 VSD Full Feature unit.

Four years later, it was time to review the situation to ensure that the installation was still relevant to the manufacturing processes.

Atlas Copco’s Airscan audit team presented its proposals based on simulations. The recommendation and agreement was for two GA55+ fixed-speed machines and a GA55VSD, all full-feature machines with integral dryers.

 Together with output controlled by an ES 130 unit and AIRConnect remote monitoring, this combination allowed one fixed machine to run as a base load supply unit that could be topped up by the Variable Speed Drive compressor or, on low production demand, just to run the VSD machine by itself. This three-machine option also allowed for maintenance on any one unit without reduction in capacity.

Although the 165 l/s output of each of the smaller replacement compressors is lower than those of the original installation, the improved efficiency of the units means that their net capacity is more than sufficient to meet the increased plant air requirements.