New Surface Center Enhances Urban Transport Services

SECTIONAL VENTILATION BOOST ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN RAIL PAINTING
The Wiener Linien focused on resource-efficient systems with minimal energy consumption and cutting-edge technology for the construction of their main workshop. They are investing €163 million during a renovation period lasting until 2013 to modernise the main workshop in Vienna's 11th district to the latest technical standards. The surface treatment section was recently put into operation. Alongside meeting the high demands for rail vehicle painting, the facility gives emphasis cost-efficiency. Trams, local buses, and associated small parts and attachments are not only technically but also visually updated as part of regular maintenance. With the introduction of the ULF, the new low-floor vehicle in the fleet, a 42-meter-long wagon painting cabin had to be implemented alongside a small-parts painting cabin.
SLF Oberflächentechnik won an EU-wide tender by offering sectional ventilation combined with an automatic personnel detection system as the best solution. The implemented technology enables energy savings. Due to the varying and up to 37-meter-long vehicles, the cabin was equipped with an automatic personnel detection system for the painters. Sectional operation saves significant energy by supplying fresh air only to the immediate working area around the active painter and extracting air sectionally through the floor. The ventilation follows the painter’s movement, preventing unnecessary ventilation in unoccupied areas of the painting cabin. The active work section can be selected manually by the painter using buttons on the cabin’s longitudinal walls, an explosion-proof mobile remote control, or fully automatically via a personnel detection system.
The Wiener Linien will now paint their rail vehicles in a new wagon painting booth equipped with sectional ventilation and an automatic personnel detection system.
UTILISING SAVINGS POTENTIAL IN VENTILATION
On both sides of the wagon painting booth, folding doors are integrated, aligned with the overall hall concept. The tram is positioned via a shunting platform and can be moved into the paint booth from both outside and a connecting hall. Buses are brought in from the outside for refurbishment. Painters can coat vehicles either from the floor or using wall-mounted elevating work platforms. The two elevating work platforms, with a maximum load capacity of 250 kg per platform, have sufficient reserves to ensure the paint supply is available directly on the platform.
The energy-saving control of the ventilation system provides additional savings potential by operating the system at 50% capacity during breaks in painting activities, saving both electricity and heating energy. The booths feature a sandwich panel construction, and all heat-carrying pipes are insulated with high-quality thermal insulation. The energy savings from these measures, combined with the use of a two-stage paint separation system with impact separators, reduce maintenance costs significantly. In combined spray and drying booths with SLF technology, savings of up to 70% are possible compared to conventional full-area supply and exhaust ventilation.
TWO-STAGE PAINT MIST SEPARATION
The airflow in the active work section captures the overspray via a full-surface supply air filter ceiling and directs the pollutants to the floor suction. The overspray is initially separated by approximately 70% through the heavy-duty impact separators developed by SLF and is then further filtered in a central filter to comply with legal limits. This greatly extends the lifespan of the downstream filter cassettes compared to conventional separation methods using grid bars and underlying filter mats. In addition to much longer intervals between filter changes, the effort required for filter changes is not only more ergonomic but also significantly shorter, completing the process in less than 15 minutes with no downtime.
Buses can be worked on either from the floor or using the wall-mounted elevating work platforms, which allow direct paint supply.
SEPARATE AND ECONOMICAL SMALL PARTS PAINTING
A small parts painting area has been set up parallel to the wagon painting booth. Small parts can be painted independently of the vehicle painting system in a combined spray and drying booth. Here, the heavy-duty impact separators embedded in the floor are also used. For economic reasons, sectional ventilation was implemented in this booth, and the 7.0 x 6.0 m space is divided into two manually selectable sections. However, the ventilation system is designed to ventilate the entire painting area if needed.
The heating for both systems is supplied by a district heating transfer station, ensuring the conditioning in the painting process and an air temperature of up to 60°C during drying. The entire system and ventilation technology, including heat recovery via rotary heat exchangers with an efficiency of 65%, was installed in the basement directly beneath the painting booths. The energy-efficient system concept is rounded off with frequency-controlled fan motors, an intuitive user interface via touch panels, a fire alarm system, and remote maintenance by SLF technicians from the headquarters in Greven. In addition to the large project at Siemens AG in Vienna, the new surface center at the main workshop of Wiener Linien is also one of the modern systems for rail vehicle painting by SLF Oberflächentechnik GmbH.
In the 42-meter-long wagon painting facility, the Wiener Linien paint trams and local buses.
ADVANTAGES OF SECTIONAL VENTILATION
- Includes fully automatic personnel detection system in the vehicle painting booth
- Elevating work platforms with paint supply directly on the platform
- Separate painting of small parts with sectional supply and exhaust ventilation
- Heat recovery via rotary heat exchangers (efficiency 65%)
- Two-stage paint mist separation for longer filter lifespans; short filter replacement times
PARTNERING WITH SMS
Specialist Machinery Sales (SMS) is a complete system and solution provider. SMS proudly offers the complete material handling to meet our client's material flow pain points and challenges; thus, innovating the traditional material flow of a fabricator's workshop- fabrication/assembly and welding out prior to shot blasting and painting. We are proud to be the only partner in Australia and New Zealand who can provide a complete system and integrate these machines from steel processing for all steel profiles and plate. We partner with only the best and superior machine tool builders that have been market leaders of innovation and automation to the steel industry. We strongly believe that the future for our clients and the steel industry is to link the various machines and technologies, software, material handling, and automation together. This is now possible with a mix of new and pre-loved machines that can be integrated into the material handling ecosystem and footprint available when partnering with SMS.

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