Fabrics that are flowing or robust, playful or elegant, modern or classic, striking or discreet: in the Deveaux fabric storage facility in Saint-Vincent-de-Reins, about 70 kilo­me­ters north-west of Lyon, you can see and feel that this is where creativity and skill are inter­woven. Deveaux has been producing textiles for over 200 years – currently with 37 employees and 63 looms. Every day they trans­form the finest cotton into up to 10,000 meters of fabric. And both man and machine depend on good air quality in the mill.

Thibaud von Tschammer, Managing Director of Deveaux, explains: “We process cotton into luxu­rious fabrics and stable humidity is essen­tial for this. If it is not right, the looms react and produc­tivity can be halved. If the air is too dry, for example, the yarns can easily break. However, the ideal levels vary from mate­rial to mate­rial.” It’s just as impor­tant that circu­la­tion keeps the air clean: “The fine dust from the cotton other­wise settles on the textiles and makes work in the mill unpleasant,” says von Tschammer.

The height of fashion

That’s why 20 years ago, Deveaux decided to work with instal­la­tion company J.Moos, also based in the Rhône-Alpes region, to bring their venti­lation system up to the then state of the art. But like moths to a cloth, the ravages of time gnawed away at the system. “At the time, we had a partic­u­larly advanced venti­lation system installed by J.Moos, which made a deci­sive contri­bu­tion to the quality of our fabrics and hence to our good name in the textile industry. But like fashion, tech­nology continues to evolve. So we decided that the large system, which was consuming a lot of energy and was not flex­ible enough to adapt to changing require­ments, needed to be upgraded again,” says von Tschammer.

The construc­tion for one of the two FanGrids took place at the end of 2022. (Photo | J. Moos)

24 Radi­Pacs are used per FanGrid. (Photo | J. Moos)

Enter FanGrid

At the end of 2022, there was a clean-out: Instead of the four outdated AC axial compact fans in the venti­lation system, Deveaux received a total of 48 centrifugal fans from the RadiPac series from ebm-papst. With two fan walls of 24 Radi­Pacs each, it is ebm-papst’s largest FanGrid project in France to date.

It was clear to Hugues Letombe, the owner of J.Moos’ supplier Deressy Charlas, that it had to be RadiPac for Deveaux’s require­ments. As he explains: “When J.Moos contacted us about retro­fitting old gener­a­tion axial fans, I imme­di­ately thought of ebm-papst and its new K3G and RadiPac fans because of the require­ments. They work very effi­ciently, can be easily plugged together to form a FanGrid thanks to their cube design and have auto­matic reso­nance detec­tion on board.

This point was partic­u­larly impor­tant for Deveaux’s existing system so that it would last a long time. And indeed, this solu­tion is proving to be more effi­cient and reli­able, much quieter, and more energy-effi­cient and sustain­able.” Pascal Magnin, Tech­nical Director at J.Moos, confirms: “The new system is four times as quiet as the old one, and Deveaux is currently making energy savings of 30 percent.”