Value Delivered
In collaboration with Austral Von Roll Isola’s (AVR) mechanical engineering staff, we were able to recommend and implement improvements to their production system, that reduced cycle times by 25 percent—from nearly 13 hours per cycle to 10 hours—helping the plant improve productivity, maintain high quality, and reduce costs.
Further mechanical design improvements throughout AVR's other systems helped reduce cycle times to approximately 7 hours, delivering a 40% improvement.
Client Objectives
AVR processes copper rods into finished wire using a drawing and rolling process to harden the copper, followed by annealing and insulation coating. Their production system required a high-heat cycle and then a cool-down cycle using a refrigerant heat exchanger to cool large copper coils to room temperature in a short period of time.
Their heat exchanger was exposed to a wide range of temperatures, requiring a sophisticated direct expansion refrigerant piping system to prevent oil carbonization and compressor failure. Hot gas bypass was also required for compressor loading at low suction temperatures.
At times, human intervention was necessary to manually override the system to facilitate proper cooling. EMCOR Services Aircond helped AVR solve this challenge with increased system automation.
Solutions
EMCOR Services Aircond analyzed AVR’s processes to fully understand their complexity. Following this analysis, our technical experts recommended changes in the refrigerant piping scheme as well as temperature and pressure monitoring locations.
Our solution equipped their system to achieve a reduction in the number of hours required to cool down their system’s copper coils. We also provided the automatic desuperheating and artificial compressor loading needed for the system to operate smoothly and unattended over the full cool-down range.
Client Background
Founded in Switzerland, in 1903, Austral Von Roll Isola is a global pioneer in the field of insulation for electrical machinery, with facilities in Europe, North and South America, South Africa, and Asia.