Heater for High Pressure Laminate
Formica Group is a leading provider of branded, designed surfacing solutions for commercial and residential customers worldwide. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of High Pressure Laminate (HPL) and the Formica® brand is known world-wide
The Solution
To maintain the consistent quality Formica is renowned for, reliability and efficiency are key to the manufacturing process. Babcock Wanson recommended its EPC 1500ES fully automatic coil type, multi-pass Thermal Fluid Heater for the project as it provides optimal distribution of the heat, high fluid velocity in the exchange tubes and continuous flow monitoring to ensure long fluid life and the highest level of safety.
The EPC Heater includes a large integral exhaust gas to combustion air economiser which cools the exhaust gas by heating in the incoming combustion air so increasing combustion efficiency.
During commissioning, with an outlet thermal fluid temperature of 287 C, the flue gas was cooled to 200 C giving a combustion efficiency of 90-91 %. However, in subsequent operating tests under production loads and with a lower outlet thermal fluid temperature of 251 C, flue gas temperature was only 127 C and combustion efficiency increased to 94%. This high level of efficiency under working conditions really reduces the overall fuel consumption below that normally anticipated when high temperature fluids are required for process heating applications – a key benefit of the EPC ES design.
The gas fired EPC-ES has been fitted by Babcock Wanson with a primary circuit, secondary pumps and control valves on each section of the laminate treater, along with the associated pipe work.
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