The ANDRITZ PrimeLine Tissue Innovation and Application Center (PrimeLineTIAC) in Graz, Austria, has developed very successfully since its official launch in March 2018.
Many international and renowned customers from the pulp and paper industry as well as from research laboratories and universities have visited the world’s most modern research center for tissue – with the focus on trials and test runs, for example to optimize fibers for a specific product, improve product qualities, increase dryness, and reduce energy consumption, in order to develop new products and processes in the tissue sector. ANDRITZ has also carried out several R&D projects and achieved remarkable results.
PrimeLineTIAC – The birthplace of new products
Since the plant was started up, the pilot facility has been operating with conventional tissue grades. New ANDRITZ products such as the latest shoe press technology, PrimePress XT Evo, have been developed successfully, and existing products and technologies, like the ANDRITZ Vertical CrescentFormer (VRT), have been optimized. The Vertical CrescentFormer produces conventional tissue grades with lower energy consumption and better sheet quality.
At the beginning of 2018, the PrimeLineTIAC pilot plant was reconfigured to operate in textured mode. Now, just a few months later, ANDRITZ is able to present remarkable results in this field that clearly surpass the results of similar technologies on the market. Furthermore, the first customers have conducted successful trials to improve TAD operations. Within the next few months, internal R&D trials at ANDRITZ will concentrate on different configurations and developments for the production of textured and structured tissue, with the focus on reducing investment and operating costs.
“Our PrimeLineTIAC enables us to operate independently of third-party intellectual property and/or R&D facilities. It also ensures that we can use ANDRITZ technologies globally without any restrictions. These are very important advantages for our customers and ourselves,” says Klaus Blechinger, VP and Head of the ANDRITZ Tissue Product Group.
With its new PrimeLineTIAC, international technology group ANDRITZ offers utmost flexibility to customers and other stakeholders by covering all tissue grades required by the market. The pilot plant features various configurations for the production of conventional, textured, and structured (TAD) tissue. It is available to tissue producers and suppliers, research and development companies, universities, and also for ANDRITZ’s own R&D activities.
Metris PrimeControl E
To optimize and monitor the R&D activities and trials, as well as to develop new, pioneering solutions for OPP (Optimization of Process Performance), ANDRITZ has installed its own Metris PrimeControl E hardware and software at the PrimeLineTIAC. It is used to monitor and control the different pilot machine configurations as well as the stock preparation and includes alarm management, advanced reporting, drive systems, quality control systems, and remote support.
Special condition monitoring equipment and features identify imminent faults or malfunctions in the machinery, and the relevant information is visualized directly at the production line with the aid of augmented reality. Reports on energy and resource efficiency capabilities are available to monitor and optimize consumption of energy and other resources. Metris PrimeControl E is available for every ANDRITZ tissue machine supplied.