Energy saving with WUMAG TEXROLL Insulated Housing for Cylinder Dryers

Although the manufacturers have already discovered the advantages in energy efficiency of cylinder drying in comparison to various air drying methods it is well worth to look at a further improvement in energy saving of a cylinder dryer. With the following article we will show that an insulated housing for a cylinder dryer will save at least 10 - 15% of energy and that the investment can pay back in only 15 months.

Functioning and effects of an insulated housing

The cylinder dryer operates in an interactive relationship to surrounding area and hall ambient. In most cases the evaporated water is extracted with a simple steam extraction hood. The air extraction speed underneath the hood has to be chosen relatively high in order to avoid steam escaping to the surrounding area. Also it has to be taken care that the relative air humidity does not reach the saturation limit so that condensation of steam within the cylinder dryer or in the hood area would cause drop spots on the fabric.

In an open installation of a cylinder dryer energy loss is caused by radiation and convection. The side plates of cylinders, non covered cylinder surfaces and non isolated piping emit heat to the surrounding area. Due to the necessary extraction of great quantities of ambient air an even higher loss of energy is created by convection and therefore cylinders and fabric loose heat by cold air passing by. All of that creates a loss of expensive steam or thermooil energy.

The Cylinder Dryer with insulated housing is separated from hall ambient. Due to this feature the quantity of extracted air is decreased considerably and the temperature within the housing is increasing from 40 °C up to 70 °C. Therefore cylinder and fabric are surrounded by air with higher temperature and can not cool down.
The steam absorbing capacity of air is increasing from 38 g water per kg air at 40 °C to 290 g/kg at 70 °C. This leads to a decrease of relative air humidity and the overall evaporation capacity rises.

The energy efficiency of a cylinder dryer with insulated housing will be directly increased by approx. 10 - 15 %. But saving of energy will also be reached indirectly by reducing the quantity of outgoing air through the roof because only a reduced volume of preheated air has to be supplied to the production halls.

Conclusion:

WUMAG TEXROLL Insulated Housings are of well-proved experience and designed to gain the following benefits:

? saving of energy
? short time of amortisation
? higher running speed of fabric
? relief of hall heating/air conditioning systems
? drip free drying
? better working conditions in surrounding area of cylinder dryer

In a current case the amortisation time is 15 months only as one of our customers will use an insulated housing for his 20 drying cylinder machine. As the costs for energy are increasing permanently the amortisation will occur even faster in the future and the energy savings will be correspondingly higher.

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Contact:

WUMAG TEXROLL GmbH & Co. KG

Tel.: +49 2151 526-300
Fax: +49 2151 526-369

E-Mail: texroll@wumag.de