The Korean wood-based panel producer Dongwha is “very satisfied” with its new Siempelkamp plant after a record-breaking ramp-up curve. Only 6 weeks after the first board was produced, the plant was accepted by the customer, and it is already producing with more than 20% above the output guaranteed in the contract. The plant is the first in Vietnam to process acacia, a challenging raw material in the production process.
Dongwha operates a total of 3 wood-based panel plants made by Siempelkamp in Vietnam, all designed for producing medium-density fibreboard (MDF). While 2 of them were built in the south of Vietnam, the greater Saigon area, together with the Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), the new plant in Hanoi is the first direct investment of the Korean company in Vietnam. It is the first plant in Vietnam to be targeted at the special raw material resources in north of Vietnam. In the greater Hanoi area, the acacia tree species is widespread. It improves soil quality, filters pollutants and enriches the soil with nitrogen. The characteristics of acacia – durable, resistant, robust and yet flexible – make it attractive for the furniture industry. However, due to its demanding fibre geometry, acacia presents challenges to panel producers. High press speeds and capacities have not been possible until now due to the high dust content of the fibres.
Specialised in the processing of challenging raw materials, Siempelkamp handled this project well. After initial press operations with pine wood, the following ramp-up phases with the raw material acacia led to results that exceeded all expectations.
Advantages with NEO press inlet
The infeed geometry of the ContiRoll press makes a difference when processing acacia – the NEO press infeed with extended, flexible heating plate facilitates the de-aeration of the mat in the press infeed, and prevents blowouts and steel belt damage even at high production speeds. This results in higher operational reliability of the line, higher line availability and significantly increased capacity of the overall line. Particularly in thin board production, this results in a significantly increased production output compared to the technical solutions available on the market to date. Thus, the economical production of thin boards, as well as the operation of very long presses with high pressing speeds with the raw material acacia, are possible.
The NEO press infeed is the result of further developing the proven, flexible infeed of the ContiRoll. Introduced in the 1990s, this technology enables stable press speeds of up to 2,000mm/sec. Today, with the new extended infeed, Siempelkamp meets the current challenges of its customers: the processing of short-fibre wood with a high dust content and of annual plants becomes just as manageable as the production based on new gluing-blending systems with low tack.
“Our team pulled through a series of holidays between Christmas and Chinese New Year to be able to stay on schedule,” said Holger Jansen, project manager at Siempelkamp. “Parts of the commissioning were also carried out in remote mode to save valuable time. In close cooperation with the highly committed customer team, we were thus able to beat the original first board deadline by several days. The subsequent ramp-up curve set a new standard in the established cooperation between Siempelkamp and Dongwha: after only 6 weeks of operation we were able to exceed the contractually guaranteed capacity by more than 20% and hand over the plant to the customer.”
The new MDF plant sets benchmarks not only as the first press for a special raw material but also with its length. The continuous press ContiRoll in the 8′ x 47.1m format also secures Dongwha the title “longest MDF press in Asia” for the second time – both supplied by Siempelkamp.
