Steel Yankee dryers have been operating since 2000, and in recent years, they have become the dominant trend in the tissue industry. At present, the estimated number of steel Yankee dryers in operation worldwide is almost 400 units.
However, to this day, there aren’t any official guidelines regulating their safe operation, proper inspection and maintenance. The National Board Inspection codes for pressure vessels (such as ASME, PED, CSEI, JIS etc.) regulate the design and construction of steel Yankees, but their domain ends with the delivery. End users often demand that SYD checks and services be performed according to TAPPI’s standards, pointing to the need for an internationally recognized set of guidelines.
In 2015, Toscotec first put forth the idea of creating an official set of standard practices for steel Yankee’s operations. TAPPI has since entrusted the Yankee Dryer Safety and Reliability Committee - Steel Yankee Subcommittee with the task of creating a new TAPPI TIP (Technical Information Paper) dedicated to Steel Yankee Dryers. In parallel, Toscotec has played a key role in helping update the TAPPI reference book Guidelines for Safe Operation and Condition Assessment of Yankee Dryers, which includes both updated contents for cast iron Yankees and steel Yankees. These publications are expected to become available in 2019.
Toscotec North America’s Lead Technical Service Analyst, Troy Kapalczynski is Chairperson of TAPPI’s Steel Yankee Subcommittee. As he explained, “the subcommittee is composed of manufacturers and end users who collaborate to expand the knowledge of Yankee dryers and address key questions about what and how procedures should be done in order to safely operate, properly control and maintain one of the most important equipment of a tissue mill. We are working to give end users the answers they need to optimize their operations”.
Riccardo Pierini, Toscotec’s Customer Care & Yankee Dryer Service Manager, added, “The subcommittee runs a peer-reviewed, highly specialized and technical project. Specifically for steel Yankees, we addressed issues such as inspection guidelines and principles, non-destructive examinations, routine and non-routine inspections, warm-up and cool-down procedures, and boiler water chemistry. In addition, we also developed maintenance and repair practices among other operating and reliability guidelines. These are all fundamental questions for Yankee managers worldwide”.
As the leading supplier of steel Yankee dryers worldwide, Toscotec is the leading provider of content for TAPPI’s Steel Yankee Subcommittee. In this respect, Toscotec North America’s Area Engineering Manager, Alessandro Rocchiccioli pointed out, “We have 18 years of experience in the design, manufacture, and operation monitoring and service of steel Yankee dryers. With over 200 references, we have TT SYD running across the globe under a wide range of different environmental, pressure and operating conditions. We want to share this experience with the entire tissue industry, because the market has confirmed that steel Yankees are the future and, as an industry, we need a clear regulatory framework, as cast iron Yankees had back in 1992”.
