ACI airknives achieve dramatic reductions at
Marley Floors
Application: Removing water used for cooling
pvc web
Marley Floors at Lenham, near Maidstone in Kent, has achieved
a major reduction in noise and a significant cost saving by
replacing compressed air driven airknives on their PVC flooring
production lines with low-pressureACI Airknife systems. Industrial
Engineer Les Tindall explained that the change to using blowers
was part of a major programme of sound reduction throughout
the Marley Floors site.
‘Airknives are necessary on the continuous PVC flooring
lines to remove water used for cooling the PVC web before
the web is punched to make separate floor tiles, and so that
their flow of high-velocity air adds to the cooling effect.
The PVC flooring has to be punched at a temperature of precisely
38ºC so that the tiles subsequently shrink to exactly
300mm square.’
Industrial Engineer Barry Whitford explained that the angle
of the airknives to the PVC web, which on the 1-metre wide
tile line moves at 45 m/min, enables the team to achieve precise
control of temperature. “We use two airknives so that
we can vary the reduction of the web temperature between the
press and the punch” he said. “The temperature
of the web as it leaves the press varies because of several
factors, including the ambient temperature in the factory.
By altering the angles of the airknives we can increase or
decrease the cooling”.
Les Tindall explained that the dryness and cleanliness of
the PVC are crucial to the success of the lacquering process.
‘The compressed air driven airknives used to deposit
oil and particulate on the web’ he explained. ‘The
filtered air we get from the ACI blowers is oil-free and clean’.
The blowers powering the airknives are mounted inside compact
acoustic enclosures which play a major part in reducing the
noise of the airknife installations. A report produced for
Marley Floors by Industrial Noise and Vibration Centre Ltd
of Slough dramatically quantifies the noise reduction of the
blower-driven airknives by comparison with the former compressed
air installation.
“Near the vision table on the 2-bole line, the noise
at 1 metre from the air knives was 91 - 99 dBA, depending
on the supply air pressure. This has fallen to 84 –
85 dBA … Hence the noise has been reduced by 6 –15
dBA.”
Les Tindall is currently working on the cost savings achieved
by this and other new installations on the production lines,
but says the savings achieved by using blowers instead of
compressed air are significant. ‘We are very happy with
it’ he said. ‘We would use similar low-pressure
systems again’.
