Several complete custom systems (shown on the right) have been designed to dry coated paper-based and molded fiber 3D products, consumer products, and food items. Some of these have been in use since 2018 and operate 24/7.
These units are about 5 meters long and do the job of hot air or Infrared heated tunnel dryers that are 30-50 meters long.
A customer was able to create a plant layout with multiple Spectra HE™ Ultra production systems within existing limited area of the warehouse, without building an additional warehouse that would have been required if standard hot air dryers were used.
HTI delivered three complete drying systems for drying 3D products, such as single-use food containers coated with barrier food grade coatings.
Each dryer system is an organic part of a complete production line. It is capable of producing up to 150,000 products a day (24h).
HTI designs, builds, and installs a complete new drying system based on HTI Spectra HE™ Ultra core technology that meets customer goals.
This is the only thermal drying or curing technology used and will require a significantly smaller footprint.
The support and transport system through the dryers will depend on the type of sheet or continuous web being produced.
Spectra HE™ Ultra has provided some impressive production throughput and energy savings with Add-On and Replacement ultrasonic acoustic drying systems. But some goals can only be achieved with completely new production machines. Here are three designs that meet a wide range of applications.
Spectra HE Ultra has provided impressive production throughput and energy savings with Add-On and Replacement ultrasonic acoustic drying systems. But some goals can only be achieved with completely new production machines.
That was the case with a producer of flexible packaging materials. The existing equipment simply could not meet the market demand. This producer went to an OEM of flexographic printing equipment for a solution. The existing frame of the press did not allow for standard drying system to satisfy requested line speeds.
The HTI system was able to help. After getting the design basics from the OEM and the end-user, we developed a complete multi-color drying system with all the components: heaters, dryers, air supply and exhaust fans.
This system was designed to operate on water-based inks, using a 20-micron film at a line speed of 1000-1200 fpm. The customer initially wanted to use water-based inks but ended up using solvent-based inks and water-based finishing coatings. Further on, it was established that operation on solvent-based inks allowed the customer to run the press at 1475 fpm vs 1000 fpm on water-based inks.
In general, when solvent-based inks are used, our system is able to dry at lower temperatures or no additional heat input by using ultrasonic energized air. The design approach for this commercial print machine was to use Spectra HE™ Ultra drying units wrapped around the chilled drum. This technique avoids thermal deformation of thin films.
