I recently worked on a cooling application with an engineering company who designed a paper folding machine for their customer. As the paper enters the machine, it travels over a series of rollers or “plows” that folds the paper into the desired design. At the last step a heated glue is applied to the edge so the paper stays folded. After the paper leaves the folder it is sent to a stack machine to be processed and packaged for shipment. It was at this area they were starting to see some issues arise as the glue was retaining heat, causing it to leak onto the dividers of the stacker or other finished papers.

To try and remedy the situation, the customer had installed an air nozzle to blow compressed air across the last fold and while this did work somewhat, they had to operate at really low pressure so they didn’t cause the paper to move while trying to cool the glue. This slowed the process down, which was negatively affecting their production output, so they reached out for assistance on a more reliable solution.

After further discussing the process with the design company, I recommended they use our Model # 3908 Small Vortex Tube Cooling Kit. The Vortex Tube Cooling Kits include the Vortex Tube, cold muffler, tubing, filter separator and all of the generators to change the flow rate and cooling capacity of the Vortex Tube during operation. The temperature drop from the supply air temperature and the volume of air being exhausted can be controlled by adjusting the valve in the hot end to change the cold fraction (the percentage of air being exhausted out of the cold end versus the amount of air being exhausted out of the hot end).

By incorporating the Cooling Kit into the process, the customer would be able to experiment with the airflow and temperature to achieve an acceptable balance, providing enough cold air to cure the glue, while not disrupting the process. If you have a similar process you would like to discuss, please contact an application engineer at 800-903-9247 for assistance.

Justin Nicholl
Application Engineer
justinnicholl@exair.com
@EXAIR_JN

The Folding Machine 4 image courtesy of Ms. Tharpe via creative commons license