Three years of Condebelt drying at Stora Enso's Pankakoski Mill

The first commercial Condebelt dryer installation started in May 1996, at Stora Enso Pankakoski mill, in Finland. When applying a drying process totally different from the conventional methods one would expect a great deal of serious problems. This was not the case. Despite some initial, machine constructional problems the unit has worked well. The runnability has been good and not any different from that of the base machine. During these three years the unit has shown its capabilities in producing products with a unique combination of properties, especially with three board grades: coreboard, linerboard and also with bulky wood pulp board. The results have been excellent and have brought the Pankakoski BM3 quality to the top of the class. The new drying unit has proved to be a reliable and very versatile piece of drying equipment with extremely large operating windows, thus also being suitable for multigrade board machines. Actually, the new unit is clearly more than a dryer. It has proven to be a powerful tool for improving and controlling the quality of board.