A humidity solution from Airtec® improved productivity and reduced production costs at a plywood mill in Jyväskylä, Finland. Additionally, adding the humidification system from Airtec® lowered the dust level and improved the working environment.
Extreme temperatures generated from the production of plywood was putting stress on the workers, which created an uncomfortable working environment and reduced the productivity.
The excess amount of dust from the production was another barrier that affected the visibility, health and efficiency of the workers. Installing a humidification system from Airtec® tackled both these issues, providing significant improvements for the workers and the production.
One year after the installation production manager Antti Vainio is very satisfied with the system and the feedback from the workers is positive:
“We have clearly experienced how the air humidification system from Airtec® has improved the wellbeing of our employees and the productivity of the production facility. This also means that the system has practically paid for itself.”
Airtec® installed a solution with high pressure air humidification, carefully targeting nozzles at the identified problem areas. The solution was to generate localized cooling with the right amount of easy adjustable nozzle atomizers – HydroOne™ and HydroTrio™ based on an EasyLine™ control and pump unit supplying 88 l/h water in 3 zones.
The phenomenon is known as adiabatic cooling, where evaporated water mist sprayed into the ambient air creates a cooling effect by consuming the surrounding heat. In this case the evaporation process cooling effect is approx. 62 kWh.
Even now UPM is extending the system to other areas and similar solutions from Airtec® is already in use on all other UPM birch plywood mills around Finland.
