New state of the art Lacquering Line No 2 at ELVAL Aluminium

The final product – cans for beverages, beer, and pet food – extends shelf life, while guaranteeing safe, top quality, and great-tasting food products worldwide.

The services provided by ANDRITZ included engineering, electrical engineering, automation, and commissioning of the following core equipment:

• Terminal and strip transport equipment with 2 uncoilers and 2 recoilers
• Automatic flattening function
• Stitcher and taping machine to cover the stitch
• High-precision tension leveler
• High-pressure cleaning section
• Vertical accumulators
• Main cleaning (pickling) section
• Passivation coaters
• Lacquering coater, with a shuttle coater for fast product change
• Surface inspection
• Waxer and electrostatic oiler

The color coating line is connected to the customer’s fully automatic high-rack coil warehouse.
 

TRUST IN ANDRITZ ENGINEERING QUALITY AND EXCELLENT PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

Those were the key factors in ELVAL's decision to award this contract to ANDRITZ. The good relationship between ELVAL and ANDRITZ is based on trust and proven reliability established in two previous contracts: The tension leveling and finishing line, which started up in 2010, is still called the “SUNDWIG line” at the ELVAL Oinofyta plant. It cleans and levels finished material at
line speeds of 300 to 500 m/min. Another experience remembered very well by all team members is the project to revamp the cleaning sections of the lacquering line no. 1 in the winter outage at the beginning of 2016. The ANDRITZ team has demonstrated an outstanding performance and commitment. The team managed to get the line ready for production “overnight” and could not be stopped by various challenges.

The excellent result and performance was highly appreciated by ELVAL, who awarded ANDRITZ with the contract to supply their new lacquering line no. 2. This coating line includes pretreatment of the material, such as cleaning, pickling, and passivation roll coating. After that, the lacquer is applied with the lacquering coater and dried on the strip surface before recoiling.
 

CHALLENGES DURING PROJECT EXECUTION

The kickoff meeting and the basic design meeting had to be held online due to the pandemic, which was a new situation for everyone involved. Regular contact with the customer and holding regular online meetings ensured that progress was made in the engineering and fruitful information exchange took place. The shortage of raw materials and the lack of commitment from suppliers to guarantee delivery times (especially regarding electrical components) presented an additional challenge.

GREEK HOSPITALITY MEETS ANDRITZ TECHNOLOGY

Nevertheless, the project teams were pleased when the first face-to-face meeting was possible, even if it was already the detailed design meeting, 9 months after the start of the contract. The following phases of the project showed that personal contact with the customer is an important success factor.
 

ANDRITZ COATING TECHNOLOGY

The coating section consists of 2 passivation roll coaters and the lacquering coater. The lacquering coater applies different paints on the outer and inner surface. For fast product change the coater is equipped with 2 lower coating decks, which shuttle out of the line for preparation and cleaning. The coating thickness is monitored by online film thickness measurement after the lacquering oven. The top quality produced is the result of the intensive cooperation between engineering teams in Vienna, Hemer, external partners, operational experience by ELVAL and integration and control by our electric and automation team.
The coater technology and learnings are employed in further projects, e.g. at the Bluescope CGL contract.
 

PROCESS TREATMENT SECTIONS MADE OF PP

From the technical point of view, ELVAL appreciate the advantages of the polypropylene pickling section and the high manufacturing quality of the PP workshop in Graz. The 20 bar high-pressure cleaning and the high precision tension leveler, contributes to an even higher quality of the final strip surface.

To reduce the onsite work as much as possible, ANDRITZ delivered pump skids which were pre-piped, pre-wired and equipped with heat exchanger and process pumps. The simple installation helped to keep the though installation schedule.
 

START-UP AND FIRST COIL

The first painted coil was completed on February 2, 2023, allowing the customer to start producing sample material. At this point, we wish to explicitly point out the excellent work of the commissioning team, which enabled the customer to achieve prompt commercial production. The thin strip, with a strip thickness of only 0.12mm, definitely posed a challenge, but the team was able to overcome this challenge together.

In the end, the project was a success and the result will also characterize the good cooperation between ELVAL and ANDRITZ in the future.