John Brooks Company shower header solves issues for pulp mill

A pulp mill eliminated pulp buildup with this solution.

Businesses across the country rely on John Brooks Company Limited for an unparalleled selection of fluid-control products. The supplier has a long, diverse history of helping customers solve problems in their production facilities for more than eight decades – solutions that lead to higher productivity and increased profit over the long run. Here is one of many examples – in which a pulp and paper mill in Western Canada yielded improved efficiency and product quality with a new shower header.

How to stop pulp accumulation

The mill was dealing with a severe production and maintenance challenge because pulp was building up around the inside diameter of its headbox. Pulp accumulation can result in bio-degradation and contamination of the pulp, which affects the integrity of the product. The mill was treating the buildup manually, but this cleaning method was inefficient.

A new, dedicated shower header was needed. So the mill got in touch with Steve Faulks, an application expert at John Brooks Company. The expert worked with the customer to find an appropriate solution for an open-top headbox design and recommended a custom shower design that would keep the inside of the headbox clean, without spraying above the open-top. This would eliminate the accumulation of pulp on a constant basis, so that manual cleaning would no longer be necessary.

Faulks suggested using a custom-built, 252-inch shower header with a three-inch SCH 40 pipe, along with 122 Drop pipe-nozzle assemblies with 60-degree full cone nozzles. The user mounts the header on top of the headbox, with nozzles positioned through extensions as close to the problem area as possible. A cleaning spray is directed several inches down into the headbox, and a shower sub-assembly can be added at each end to spray the short sides.

The mill team installed the shower during a scheduled maintenance shutdown, so that production would not be affected. The solution yielded such immediate results as improved operational efficiency and productivity, elimination of potential web breaks, and higher product quality. As always, John Brooks Company made things better with the right solution.

For more information, contact John Brooks Company.

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