Having previously purchase a DiamondRoll VIRO Fines Screen for their wood yard, Rayonier at Jesup, GA has recently purchased a model 20132 Disc Thickness Screen to replace an existing bar screen in one line of their chip thickness screening system.  The new thickness screen has a rated capacity of 110 units per hour (approximately 240 to 260 green tons per hour).  The twenty shaft screen has an effective width of 132” and will be installed in the spring of 2008.  The drive uses special sintered bushing chain and requires no periodic lubrication.  The installed screen will operate at a slight incline to improve capacity and screen performance.

 

This summer Acrowood became the official representative for the product lines of Teknosavo OY of Savonlinna, Finland for all of the USA, Canada, and China.

Teknosavo makes vision-based sensors that measure bark and wood in and around the debarking process.  The products measure: white wood present in a bark stream after the debarker prior to the hog; bark still on the log at the end of the debarking cycle; bark in chips after the chipper; and several parameters having to do with the chips (brightness, moisture, and general information on size distribution).

They also make a Sonic Sentry-like sounding board sensor for rock, metal, and ice detection in wood chips.  Links to the complete product line can be found at www.acrowood.com.

Acrowood customers will find this product line useful to optimize their operations, save money by reducing wood losses, and improve their final products by reducing the bark content of their chips, all by employing the technologies Acrowood now offers through Teknosavo OY.
 

Verso Paper in Quinnesec, MI has purchased an Acrowood Chip Cracker for their chip thickness screening system. They selected the Acrowood machine based on heavy duty cast stainless steel cracker segments, durability of design, robust hydraulic system, and excellent field performance. The Acrowood chip cracker will replace an existing Chip Conditioner. Start-up will be late summer, 2007 

Weyerhaeuser’s sawmill in Elkin, North Carolina has purchased an Acrowood DiamondRoll screen to help recover valuable fiber in the mill. The screen will be operating on a current waste stream, recovering usable wood fiber from a previously unused source. Acrowood is supplying a model 4060 DiamondRoll Fines Screen for this application.

The process of fiber recovery is catching on in many mills. The problem has been that rotary screens must have an open fines deck in order to adequately remove the small material present in the wood chips. When these large openings are used too much good fiber is lost as well. The DiamondRoll has proven to be an excellent technology to recover small accept chips and pin chips in this flow.

In some cases it is possible to incorporate the additional functions into the DiamondRoll screen. When penned ship control is specifically desired the roles can be set at a slightly larger gap and made with a slightly larger Knurl pattern to capture the specific fraction. Using a adjustable position based below the DiamondRoll screen gives volumetric control, well the role spacing and patterns above give quality control. This multiple function characteristic is most often put in use in cold northern climates where winter months see temperatures fall to -30°. Under these conditions the pain should generation rate can exceed 25% 

Meeting the demands of the European union’s energy needs, Acrowood has worked with in Irish company which is establishing a new wood pellet operation in Kilkenny, Ireland.  This mill will receive log, debark and chip them, grind them and pelletize them for eventual use to offset fossil fuel sources in electrical power plants. Acrowood’s participation in this particular project is to supply the Acrowood DEAL Debarker, a model 8424 slant disk whole log chipper, and a model 1020 dual drive suspended screen.

The customer is called Roto Spiral. The project has been managed and purchased by SFL Engineering of Kilkenny. The equipment will be shipped at the end of the summer who with a startup slated for a late 2007 timeframe.

Interest in pellet plants has been very high in the last twelve months. As Europe moves to meet the provisions of the Kyoto protocol, which is intended to drive down carbon emissions from fossil fuel sources, they have hit on the idea of using wood based fuels to offset fossil fuels. The idea is that wood based fuels release carbon that has been recently sequestered by trees, therefore completing a relatively current or active cycle of carbon sequestration and return to the environment. The use of fossil fuels adds carbon to the atmosphere that has been buried in the ground for thousands of years.  Pellets can offset as much as 20% of the fossil fuel needs of some power plants.  Plans for pellet plants in North America, Europe, and South America have put several companies in motion to satisfy this need.

 

Completing the final purchase for their woodyard expansion project, Sun Paper has purchased from Acrowood two additional screens for handling raw materials. The screens will be used on the waste veneer chipping line, removing fines from a rough and unsorted waste veneer source. This material is typically delivered directly from very small veneer operations where the waste veneer becomes contaminated with sand, grit, and wood fines. By removing this contaminating material prior to chipping, wear rates are improved and overall process efficiency is optimized.

The start up for the whole woodyard is planned for November, 2007. The mill is located in Shangdong Provence, in north central China.

 

Acrowood’s acquisition of the DEAL Debarker and DEAL Processor product lines has proven to be a very good arrangement. As we approach the one year mark, I can happily report that we have sold two large debarkers, we are on the verge of selling several more, and have a large and active project list. We have included the DEAL as a part of our offerings for several projects in Asia, Australia, and Europe that include chipping, chip thickness screening, veneer chipping, and all sorts of general wood handling. The north American market has also been very brisk. Overall, we’re very pleased to fill out this portion of the Acrowood product line.

A key part of this successful expansion has been the addition of Vic Peetso to Acrowood’s staff. Vic has proven to be a real dynamo.  He works tirelessly, follows up relentlessly, and travels constantly.  He seems to live for the messages that come and go on his Blackberry.  We are very pleased to be working with Vic.

 

WAPRES, a leader in the Western Australian plantation and woodchip export industry, has purchased Acrowood equipment for its new chip processing mill in Bunbury.
Its plantations of blue gum, a species of eucalyptus known for its fast growth and high wood quality, are harvested every seven years. To date, they have been chipped at Manjimup, Western Australia, and sent by rail to Bunbury, where they are then exported to Japan. The new $3.5 million (U.S.D.) chip processing plant will allow WAPRES to field debark the trees and ship them by rail to Bunbury for chipping.
They have selected an Acrowood 98” horizontal feed bottom discharge whole log chipper for primary chip processing. They also bought an Acrowood 61” 10-knife rechipper to process overs, and two Acrowood 1220 Dual Drive Suspended Screens. The log decks, conveyors, support structures, and logistics are being supplied by Acrowood’s licensee, Timber Tech Engineering in Mt. Gambier, South Australia. Timber Tech will supply the log decks, conveyors, support structure and will manufacture the Dual Drive Suspended Screens.
 

Acrowood has received an order for four Model 12132 Disc Thickness Screens for a woodyard expansion project in a mill in Indonesia. The Acrowood Disc Thickness Screen includes welded shaft assemblies, proven for durability in installations around the world.  The equipment was sold through Kastraco Engineering in Jakarta, Indonesia.

 

Norbord’s mill in Guntown, Miss. is screening green OSB strands with an Acrowood Trillium™ Screen and an Acrowood DiamondRoll™ Screen, a new innovation that is proving successful. This screening combination was installed four months ago on one of the mill’s three stranding lines to remove the fines from the strander flakes before they get to the flatbed driers.

One of the challenges of green strand screening is the up-and-down nature of the flow rate from the strander. As the wood is cut, a peak flow condition occurs, followed by a period where the belt runs empty as the strander re-sets for another cut. The downstream conveyor and screening system then sees a pulse flow of strands, from maximum to none, on an alternating basis. Designing a classically-styled screen for a steady state condition is not possible; it must be able to handle the peaks and separate the materials to be separated under all conditions.

In its four months of operation in the Mississippi installation, the combined DiamondRoll and Trillium screens are proving to be dependable, efficient, and durable. The Trillium handles surges well, removes fines with excellent precision and efficiency and has improved the operation of the drier by reducing the dead load.

The Trillium is the only screen with a proven track record of success in this difficult but promising field of green strand screening. It joins a variety of other screens developed by Acrowood that have also proven themselves in green and dry strand screening applications, including the Acrowood Flake Disc Screen, DiamondRoll Screen (in a stand-alone application, and in combination with others), the Dual Drive Suspended Rotary Screen, Air Density Separator, Disc Scalping Screen, and many others.

 

A newly installed Acrowood DiamondRoll Thickness Screen and DiamondRoll Fines Screen are helping a large pulp and paper mill in Cortland, Alabama meet its two-fold need of improving fines removal efficiencies while reclaiming higher percentages of usable fiber.
Acrowood recently installed an 80156 DiamondRoll Thickness Screen as a replacement to the mill’s existing screen by another manufacturer. The mill also installed a small 4036 DiamondRoll Fines Screen for re-processing fines that have passed through a rotary screen.
The mill’s goal is to recover as much usable fiber from the existing fines flow while reclaiming a higher percentage of usable fiber.

 

Acrowood, a well-established manufacturer of wood processing machinery with sales throughout the world, has entered the Chinese market by selling a complete line of machinery to Sun Paper in north central China in November.

Acrowood’s documented ability to improve fiber recovery and quality in mills, its in-house engineering, manufacturing and service, and its commitment to the Chinese market made Acrowood a clear choice for Sun Paper’s new woodyard, expanding to process hybrid poplars.

Acrowood sold a line of machinery for the mill’s new debarking and chipping line, a veneer processing line, and a chip thickness screening line. Acrowood’s supply includes a debarker, chippers, disc thickness screens, DiamondRoll Fines screens, an air density separator, chippers, hogs, log loaders, conveyors, and more.

Acrowood spent three years positioning itself in China, and establishing a relationship with the mills through its agent, New Bonafide Machinery, a firm which to date had primarily manufactured equipment for recycled pulp. The partnership between Acrowood and New Bonafide has given Acrowood a strong marketing partner in the Chinese pulp industry. Over the past year and a half, Acrowood demonstrated its commitment to the Chinese market, by sending its knowledgable staff to visit with mills and offer its technologies, well proven in the processing of hardwoods and softwoods in North America.

Acrowood’s Vice President and General Manager, Desmond Smith, identifies the company’s success and growth in China as having three root causes: Acrowood’s commitment to China’s emerging pulp and paper market; the company’s partnership with New Bonafide; and Acrowood’s expert sales and service team identifying customers and following up to aggressively meet their needs.