Pac Global is a Swiss company specializing in bottle cleaning machines with low energy consumption. When the company recently tested its new prototype equipped with bottle transport cells, the steel in the cell holders couldn’t cope with the pressure and became deformed. As a result, the company decided on SSAB Shape and SSAB’s welding specialists for a fast upgrade to high strength steel.
“The steel sheets need to be folded and then welded to manufacture the cell holders,” explains technician Alfred Mayrhofer. “Therefore we needed strong steel that can be bent 180 degrees without cracking.”
The new bottle washing machine, which has a washing capacity of 5,000 bottles per hour, has been manufactured for PAC Global’s customer Royal Crest Dairy, the largest dairy company in Colorado, US. Dairy products are delivered to the customer’s doorstep and the empty bottles are picked up and cleaned. Since the Royal Crest Dairy offers milk in two different sizes – half a gallon and one gallon – cells are needed to separate the different bottles within the washing machine.
The whole machine weighs a total of 15 tons. Pac Global has used four tons of SSAB’s cold-rolled Docol 500LA steel in the cell holders.
“With this steel, the cell holders not only stay intact, they also weigh only 17 kilos instead of 40, which of course reduces the total load that moves through the machine as well as the amount of water and energy needed for washing the bottles,” says Mayrhofer.