AC GEARLESS DRYER INSTALLATION NORBERT KESSLER VICE PRESIDENT ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT - MILL OPERATIONS GREEN BAY PACKAGING INC. GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN, USA ROBERT VAN LIESHOUT APPLICATION ENGINEER ALLEN-BRADLEY /STROMBERG BROWN DEER, WISCONSIN, USA Aner eee Paper machine dryer gear drives on existing machines, when’ subjected to increased speeds, ‘tend to cause a wide variety of operational and maintenance problems. Today's improved electric drive technology has made the prospect of driving an entire dryer section through the use of a gearless felt drive a reality. Though this concept is not a new one, the very first application of this type in North America involving paralleled AC motors fron a common inverter has been operating successfully since late Novenber, 1989. The selection factors and design considerations for the drive systen are reviewed in this paper. ‘BACKGROUND Prior to the rebuild of the Green pay Packaging No. 1 corrugating medium machine, the dryer section, installed about forty years ago, had.’ reached its critical operating level and design yield point at 1600 FPM. The entire “dryer ‘section consisted of 54, 60-inch diameter low steam pressure dryers, operating with bronze Sleeve bearings ‘and open type cast iron gears. The dryer drive sections each Consisted of eight or ten paper dryers with both top and bottom fabrics and were driven fron six indrive gear pinions. PROJECT OBJECTIVES The selection of the now dryer and drive system became a nulti-disciplined effort based on research and application of the latest specitic technology know-how in drive electronics and mechanical designs. ‘The top line “requirement had been directed to achieve the highest possible level of Product quality, producing a. sheet with uniform “end noisture at’ speeds up” to 3000 FPM, with a minimum change of the sheet structure, strength and” surface characteristics during the drying stage. DESIGN SELECTION Governed by the established task priorities and assisted by production group inputs and field data, the Green Bay” Packaging task force team opted for the installation of a Gearions Feit, drive vith ‘new high pressure dryers equipped with anti-friction bearings. Fron the numerous drive options analyzed, the advantages and benefits of the gearless Grive arrangenent became most” evident, Considering ‘the complete absence “of any fetailic friction” parts for notion Eransnission of the sizeable mass of a paper nachine dryer section. The analysis identified the following advantages for this drive arrangenent, compared with conventional gear driven dryers. = Energy conservation. = Elimination of gear noise. = Elimination of oil contamination fron gear casings. = Low capital dollars ~ reduced spare parts inventory. = Reduced downtime and maintenance. = synchronous dryer cylinder surface speed within a felt loop, regardless of dryer dianeter variations due to tenperature expansion and machining tolerances. . = Dryer framing on tending side and drive side are identical for equal and uniform pocket vapor removal. ~ Easy access to drive side dryer bearings and doctors for inspection and maintenance. = Drive side access for removal of sheet broke and dust build up ~ reducing potential fire hazards. = Snooth and vibration free operation. Figure 1 - Clear Access to the Dryer Cylinders from the Drive side. The drive systen specified for the task defined above was required to be "state-of-the-art" “to provide a model for company-wide future standardization. ‘The basic requirenents called for good transient 1990 Engineering Conference / 59and steady state performance, maximum Feliability of electronic and’ rotating equipment, and a diagnostic package that was both comprehensive and user-friendly. Based on this criteria, the decision was made. to purchase a’ digital, VECTOR CONTROLLED “(see Appendix 1) | ‘Ac drive systen from Allen-Bradley/Stromberg. ‘The AC drive system not only satisfied the performance criteria. specified above, it Bdded the attractive qualities associated With the use of totally enclosed squirrel Gage induction motors. These motors Provided the user with a tugged and reliable Alternative to the DC motors that were Previously used on the machine. This Allowed the mill to eliminate the motor Ventilation systen in the wet-end area of the machine, “which was already crowded with too “many pieces of equipnent. Special design considerations were also provided Guring the motor selection to eliminate the individual ‘motor mounted blowers on the ary-end motors. This provided an increase in reliability and a reduction in maintenance (See Figure 2) DESIGN CRITERIA AND DRIVE CALCULATION ‘This paper will focus on the rebuild of the ‘Becond through fifth dryer sections into a gearless drive arrangement. Because it was Only four years old, the first dryer section retained its conventional gear drive and was merely velocated and converted from a single De indrive toa ingle AC indrive. The elimination of ‘gears in the first section Would not only” provide the mechanical advantages listed above, but data presented later in this paper suggests that it will Provide a drive, with better speed response. The typical gearless felt driven dryer section consists of a group, of drying cylinders and. felt rolls. driven by the 60 / TAPP! Proceedings contact friction of the dryer felt. Smaller horsepower motors are employed, ‘since the felt tension and the design stress build-up of the felt roll dictate the need for Several indrive locations within a particular felt loop. once the number of dryers per section has been established, which depends mostly on the sheet shrinkage requirenents, a detailed calculation of the required horsepower must take place utilizing conventional APPT Grive "factors. Preliminary” drive calculations indicatea ‘that the installation of a felt roll drive vith a maximus of four, 60-inch diancter paper @ryers was the ' proper configuration for using a minimum number of indrives. DRIVE CALCULATIONS ‘The drive calculations for a gearless felt drive require the establishment of drive horsepower values necessary to drive a felt section, followed by calculations to ascertain driveability by the felt without slippage. ‘The NRL (Norma Running Load) horsepower vas. calculated for a. "Basic. Roll. Assembl\ which consisted of one dryer, one felt roui and one doctor blade. MACHINE SPEED = 3000 FPH PELE WIDTH = 274 INCHES DRYER CAN DIAMETER = 60 INCHES FELT ROLL DIAMETER = 13.85 INCHES 3000 x 274 MACHINE CONSTANT = K = —————— = 5220 100 Utilizing typical TAPP factors yields, NRL (uP/7H/100FPH) fone (1) = 60" aryer can 0.0007 one (1) ~ 13.85 felt roll 0.0003, one (1) ~ doctor 9.0006 (metal @ 0.75 PLI) ‘TOTAL NRL 0.0016 NRE MP = K * NRE = 5220 * 0.0016 = 6.3 HP. For (1) "Basic Roll Assembly" once the NRL requirenents had been established, it was felt that detailed acceleration horsepower calculations vere) required, since the established TAPPI factors were based on single indrive geared arrangements. "The calculations utilized the recommended TAPPI. acceleration rate of 25) feet per minute per second. The WK? (inertia) and” RPM Values ofall rotatingFigure 3. Typical Dryer Section with Location of Gesrless Inrives elements in the "Basic Roll Assembly" are established as follova: one(1) - 60" dryer 79,820 LB-FT? @191 RPM one(1) - 14" felt roll 510 LB-FT? ¢627 RPM one (1) ~ Indrive shaft and coupling - not used due to extreme low value: eae AccEL HP = iiea2 * 208 « t) tz = 120 second accel / decel time. From the above equation and data, 15 HP is required for the 60-inch dryer. plus 1-9 HP for the felt roll, resulting ina total of 16.8 ACCEL HP. | The total drive RDC (Recommended Drive capacity) required during the 120" second acceleration tine for the "Basic Roll Assembly” ie: ROC HP = NRL HP + ACCEL HP 7-3 HP+16.8 HP| =25.1 HP The "Power Transmitting Ability" provides values of the maximum Norsepower which can be transmitted at the point of slippage. The inputs for this " computation were obtained. from the machine layout drawing, plus operational and engineering reference material. = Angle of felt wrap of drive roll. @ © 172 DEGREES = 3.0 RADIANS = Coefficient of friction of felt-to-roll interface. m= 0.28 (static) ~ Felt slack side tension (outgoing side). Maximum allovable resultant felt tension on the felt drive roll is 30 PLT. . 10.0 PLI (assumed industry average) ~ Felt width. w= 476 INCHES = Felt speed. 3000 FPH (design) Max Friction or Drive Force (PL) Slack Side Tension (PU) T+F = High Side Tension (PL) Figure 4. Determination of Fel Roll Briveabilty From above, the following can be calculated: ToTHr Pets (oH *@-a) to # (e018 # 3.0 _ 4) 7.26 PLT 1990 Engineering Conference / 61The “Horsepower Transmitting Ability", 5) Gan now be calculated using the following? Fes*W 7.16 * 3000 * 174 ee ee uP 33 #103 33 * 10? = 113.2 HP srs _(N) which can be driven from one indrive point is found by the equation: ‘The maximum number of dry Sgp 113.2 ne = 451 RDC 25.2 A final check of felt slippage indicates: Sup SP. = RDC * No. of dryers driven an3.2 eae 25a 4 A safety “factor (S.F.) of 1.12 has been accepted as satisfactory, considering that the largest driven section of four dryers is at. the dry end of the dryer group. Also, this section has a low condensate load and a high outgoing paper draw tension. The NRL of 0.0007 shown during the ‘These fai summary of the felt tension through the felt driven dryer illustrated in Figure 5. The tensi yim values and. occur only eration of the dryer group. equations: for the 60-inch dryer cylinder is based on TAPPI data for geared dryers, which should be considered conservative for a gearless dryer cylinder. contributed to the decision to go with the service factor of 1.12. jctors all build-up group is jon levels ‘The felt tensions presented in Figure 5 have ‘following caloulatea using the [ ROCs * 23000 } 1 (slack) + ——S Ts*wi [100.4 * 33000 } 10+ [ 3000 * 174) 16.35 PLT [ Rocz * 33000 2, -— [sew [ 21.8 * 23000 3 16.35 = { 3000 * 174 J L | Roll Position Figure. Felt Tension Graph 62 / TAPP! Proceedings= 14.97 PLE Where, RDCg = 4 dryer section ROC HP RDCy = individual roll RDC HP Bo The calculations listed above for a "Basic Roll Assembly" are sufficiently accurate for determining the driveability of a particular felt roll and the total number of Grive points requirea ina given section. ‘he actual horsepower requirements based on the ‘total number of felt rolls, dryer cylinders and doctors for the second through firth dryer section have been calculated and are displayed in Table 1. ‘he individual values for through Ts are calculated einilar to the ve procediire. ‘This table lists each of the load bearing elements along with the resultant NRL power Fequirenents. The ACCEL HP was derived using the roll” inertias, “speeds. and acceleration tine of 120 Seconds defined earlier. The DECEL HP is equal to the ACCEL HP because the mill requirements did not dictate a faster deceleration time than the acceleration tine. If the deceleration rate is set too fast, the horsepower requirement Will increase to a level that may exceed the Griveability of the felt rells and call for additional drive points within the felt loop. The RDC ACC HP column indicates the addition of the section MRL HP and it's ACCEL HP. "The RDC DEC HP column shows the subtraction of the section NRL HP from the DECEL HP because the normal running load elements will aid in the deceleration of the section. OTORS Motor sizing for a gearless dryer section is based on the "Pover Tranenitting Ability" of Table 1 - Gearless Drye: the felt roll calculated previously as 113.2 HP. "The data indicates that’ the largest horsepower motor that can be applied toa felt roll cannot exceed 113.2 HP at any time without “loosing its driveability. Given that the second dryer top through fourth dryer botton sections have a RDC HP. that is below 149 HP, only two drive motors are required for those sections. Both the fifth dryer top and bottom sections have power requirenents that exceed the maximum Griveability of two. driven. felt ‘rolls, 226 NP, and will. require three indrive points. The drive motors are selected based on the following criteria: = Deliver the NRL HP rating on a continuous basis. Deliver the ROC ACC HP requirement. for period that meets or exceeds the mill Specified 120 seconds acceleration tine. Sufficient capacity that allows delivering the inarive torque reguirenent over a 3:1 speed range without exceeding the specified heat rise of the machine. Capacity to provide jog or crawl speeds for sone sustained period without overheating. Provide the loading capacity listed above when operated from an inverter. Looking at each section NRL indicates that the motor must be sized to carry a power rating ranging from. 21 to. 31" HP continuously. The ROC requirenents show that the motor must be designed to handle an overload range anywhere fron 60 to 86 HP for the 120. Second acceleration period. It was ultimately determined that the motor size would) be based on the worst. case Fequironents in any of the dryer sections in order to minimize the number of spares. An 85 KW machine was selected to satisfy the NRL and RDC drive requirements and provide a sr Power Requirements secrrow wane |DRveRs |reLt’notxs|poécoRs| He” |*HD| aCe up| oEe ue |NOtoRS 2ub pRY TOP | 5 2 s | sfos [as | aay | 2 ano pry bor | 5 a = | [os [ae [a | 2 3RD bry Tor [5 2 s | ss] se [aes | ca | 2 [sep ory wor | 5 a 3 | ales [ae [ao |e fara ory Tor | a a | «| [ax [es | 2 fav ore or | 4 10 « [el fan [es] 2 StH pry nop | 9 as 2 | e6 |r [eso [on | 2 3TH pry vor | 9 8 9 | 21 free [ase [ey | 2 1990 Engineering Confersnce / 63sufficient degree of conservatien to cover any unknowns. "The 85 KW (113. HP) motor rating applies to a standard, 60 hertz, off-the-shelf rating for this’ particular Gesign induction motor. When you consider the derating that must be applied to satisfy the criteria defined earlier, the motor actually carried a 60 HP rating for this application. The motor was a 10 pole, 60 hertz machine (720 "synchronous RPM)" and supplied by Allen-Bradley/Stromberg. Each notor was Girect coupled to the felt roll and set up for a gear-in speed of 627 RPM 03000 FPM. ‘This indicates that the motors will operate with maximum excitation and constant torque Until they reach 60 hertz. At that point, the excitation remains constant and the motor operates in the constant horsepower range. ‘Me motors all carried a 575 volt rating to conform with the ratings selected on the larger” “horsepower” sections. ‘This is normally a much more attractive alternative because of the decreased current for the sane installed horsepower and, consequently, require smaller cable sizes than” the equivalent 460 volt unit ratings. Each motor was furnished with a 1024 pulse per revolution feedback tachoneter that is Foquired by the vector control for speed feedback and computation of rotor slip frequency. INVERTER UNITS The AC drive system inverters are used to form a three phase voltage for the induction motor from a\ constant voltage DC bus by altering the sutput voltage pulse pattern (Pulse Width Modulated). Each unit that was Supplied for the dryer drive carried a 575 volt rating to accommodate the notor voltage selected above. The higher voltage requirement dictates the use of a. Gate Turn Off thyristor (GTO) as opposed to power transistors. The GTO is just. like. the conventional thyristor, except that it can be turned off by applying a negative current pulse to the gate. The Glo gives the best Eesults when applied in the high current and high voltage ranges. Bach inverter unit is rated with a 1.0 service factor and must be sized to withstand the required overload condition on a continuous basis. Referring to Table 1 indicates ‘that the greatest horsepower Fequired for the two-notor dryer sections is 149 HP. ‘This roughly equates to a current. rating of 145 amps. An inverter rating of 210 KVA was ultimately selected to deliver a continuous rating of 211 RMS amps € 575 volts. ‘me horsepower requirenent for the three-notor fifth dryer sections are 250 and 64 / TAPPI Proceedings 259, respectively. The 259 HP rating would require approximately 225 amps. A 240 KVA inverter with a continuous current rating of 351 RMS “amps was supplied to. meet this requirement. LINE SUPPLY EQUIPMENT The inverter units supplied for this installation are systen type drives that receive their power from a constant voltage common Dc bus." The bus can be fed from the incoming AC line by two separate options: 1. LU - Line converter unit. A three phase, fuil wave diode rectification of the incoming AC line to produce a constant potential D¢ bus. The sizes range from 90 KVA to 2100 KVR. The LCU is normally used when little or no power will” be returned to the bus from ‘the inverters due to regeneration (wet end drives). If a small amount of power is returned to the bus so that its Voltage increases fora short duration, a braking chopper utilizing a GTO (gate turn-off device) can be supplied to connect a resistor grid to the bus to lover the voltage back to a safe operating level. The LCU operates at a .98 power factor over the entire speed range at ail toads. 2. TRU ~ Thyristor Braking unit. A Back-to-back thyristor bridge that transfers energy from the AC line to the Dc bus and vice versa, depending on the phase control angle ‘of the thyristors: The BU ranges in size from 90 KVA to 2100 KVA. In the rectifying mode, the TBU transfers energy fron the AC. line to the Dc bus as a normal diode bridge if the current is ‘continuous. In the generator mode, the TBU transfers the energy from the be bus to the AC line. “The TBU ie required when large anounts of power may be generated by. the drives and must be returned to the AC line. for sustained periods of operation. The power factor is .95 while supplying power to the DC bus. The two options listed above are provided with both a contactor unit and capacitor bank unit. ‘The contactor unit provides come Beans of disconnecting the Dc thru bus from the Ac line, auxiliary voltage supply and charging citcuits for the capacitor bank unit. The capacitor bank unit smooths the pulses in the Dc. voltage after, Fectification and inversion of the notor voltage. : The decision was made to utilize a TRU for the line supply “equipment of the dry end drives. The TU offers optimum transfer of the energy from the Dc bus to the AC line when the high inertia sections are braking. Since the dryer sections were specified to have the same deceleration rate as. theacceleration rate, the frictional load associated with running the dryer sections will subtract from the total deceleration over requirenent. Consequently, the power that is" returned to the AC. line when braking, is significantly lower than the positive power drawn from the DC bus during the acceleration periods. The accelerating power levels were used to determine the size of the TEU. The mill operating personnel play a large part in the final detersination of the line Supply equipment, based on how they plan to run the Bachine. Obviously, if they start All of the dryer sections’ simultaneously, the Line supply must be sized to handle ali of the accelerating power and becomes Reedlessly too large. If the mill specifies that only, several of the sections may be started together, the line supply can be significantly‘ smaller and. provide Substantial savings with respect to both equipment and installation cost. The TBU sizing for the dry end drives at Green Bay Packaging was designed to handle the continuous NRL of all of the dry end arives (all dryers, calender and reel) along with the energy required to accelerate one nominally in an 870 KVA TBU, vhic!, would be Large enough to handle three individual dryer sections accelerating simultaneously Lf none of the other sections were operating. "the ‘mill. was very confortable with this solution. A complete system Figure 6 below. one-line can be seen in PARALLELED AC HOTORS There has been a great deal of skepticism concerning whether it is practical or possible to parallel multiple AC motors fron 2’ connon inverter. “The difficult thing te Visualize is how the motors can be set up to Toad share without’ having motor field control that is used in an equivalent DC Grive. The fact of the matter is that the felt will force all of the motors within a group. to ope-ce at the same RPM and Ultimately cause the motors to automatically share the totai load of that group. As long as the rolls that are driven have equal dianeters within normal machining tolerances, the motors will share load properly fron the start (see Appendix 2). if there is a slight difference in the dianeter of the helper driven roll with SOHEAST® GEMsaaeliye” Tes “Myeboitcd ator that is eying co rotate faster vill on By Pes eleman, et ad v4 A 4 ve adbada & te ; mbna! Se ao ce eae cece tcc sc Figure. Diy End System One Line Diagram 1990 Engineering Conference / 65carry the greater amount of _ torque initially, which will have a tendency to have its rotor temperature increase. Increasing the rotor texperature directly increases the Per Unit (P.U.) slip of the motor. This basically lovers the amount of torque developed for a given speed and load froma cold to a hot rotor. The load that. is shed from one motor is picked up by the other motors in the group. This equalizing shift of load will “depend on the thermal tine constant of the motors. OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE Drive Load Data Since the machine was put back into production in November, 1989, there has been a very limited opportunity’ to go hack and Fope off sections to take drive readings and Compare the actual drive requirenents with the previously calculated values. NRL Data one such opportunity recently _ became available on the fifth dryer section. The following NRL data was taken: Machine Speed = 1400 FPH 5th Dryer Top Total Load = 12% Torque 5th Dryer Botton Total Load = 12% Torque Rated torque for the section is, as KW 3 255 SS = 942 HP -746 HP/KW 746 342 HP * 5252 eee loa eee) 720 RPM 12% of 2493 FI-LB = 299 FI-LB Relating this to 2000 FPM (827 RPM) for comparison purposes + TaN w= = 47 HP Top/Bottom Total Load 5252 ‘These valies are only 584 (Top) and 62% (Bottom) of the calculated values shown in TABLE 1. The apparent low actual loading is probably due to. the efficient gearless Indrive in combination with the fairly conservative TAPPI NRL “values currently being recommended. RDC Data ‘The following acceleration data was taken: © to 1400 FPM in 76 seconds. 5th Dryer Top RDC Load = 40% Torque 5th Dryer Botton RDC Torque = 42% Torque We know from above that rated torque ie 66 / TAPP! Proceedings equal to 2493 Fr-LB, then 40% is equal to 997 FT-IB. If the acceleration torque is defined bY Taco = Troe ~ TwrL then, Taco * 997 FI-LB - 299 PI-LB = 698 FI-LB Tace * ‘Accel HP = 5252 698 * 386 Hag = ———— = 51 HP 5252 ‘This value corresponds quite nicely with a calculated value of 56 HP based on a 76 Second acceleration tine to 1600 FPM.. Using the same calculations for the sth Dryer Bottom section yields a value of 55 HPagc- This corresponds to a calculated value of 58 HP. The following deceleration data was taken: 1400 to 0 FPM in 56 seconds. Sth Dryer Top RDC Load = -27 Torque Sth Dryer Bottom RDC Torque = -25% Torque We know from above that rated torque is equal to 2493 FI-LB, then 27% is equal to 673 FT-I8. If the deceleration torque is Gofined bY Taec = Taoc + TwRL then, ‘Tgec = 673 FI-LB + 299 FT-LB = 972 FI-LB Taec * pecel Hp = 8c" 972 * 386 WPgee © = 72 HP 5252 ‘this value corresponds quite nicely with a calculated value of 76 HP based on. a 56 Second deceleration time from 1400 FP. Using the same calculations for the 5th Dryer Botton section yields a value of 68 HPagg- This corresponds to a calculated value"Sf 78 HP. From the limited data presented above, one can see that the actual acceleration and deceleration power is almost exactly equal to. the calculated values. The actual machine “normal running loads are Significantly lover than those recommended by TAPPI for geared dryers. Drive Performance one of the distinct benefits of driving a aryer section without internal dryer gears, may not be very obvious to. the operator, however, it is very apparent to people with a drive-related background. The elimination of dryer gears renoves a. major” source of Fesonance associated with gear backlash and elasticity. The drive can be tuned-up with less difficulty and with faster response.‘ACTUAL FULL SCALE OFFSET GRAPH DRIVE | 0) SPEED REFERENCE 1355 ‘60 1355 (PPM) RUNNING i) SPEED AcTUAL 1388 60 3355 (FPN) READY 2). CURRENT ACTUAL 92 341 341 (AMP) ec A i os tr ° : ; : * spocabe® o 10 20 30 46 50 sEconDs Figure 7 - "Geared" 1st Dryer Speed Response ACTUAL FULL SCALE OFFSET ‘GRAPH DRIVE ©) SPEED REFERENCE 1355 60 1355. (PPM) RUNNING 1) SPEED ACTUAL 1355 60 3355 (FPN) READY 2) CURRENT ACTUAL 32 34h 383, (AMP) 1.0 ae a os a é io 20 30 40 50 ‘SECONDS, Figure 8 - "Gearless" Sth Dryer Top Speed Response 7. shows a ‘printout from the when a positive 30 FPM step in the speed Allen-Bradley/Stronberg “Drive Maintenance reference was introduced. The trend (DMS) “of the "GEARED" ist dryer indicates that it takes approximately 2.0 ‘speed response to both a positive seconds to reach 66.7t for a 0.5 radian and negative speed step. The first portion response. There appears to be a fair amount trend shows. the dryer Section of over-ahoot, and very Little mechanical operating at a constant speed of 1355 PPM noise related’to. the dryer gearing because 1990 Enginssring Conference / 67of the positive application of torque. ‘The second portion of the trend shows the effect of removing the positive 30 FPM step in the speed reference. It basically has the sane response as above, however, it can be noted that the anount of mechanical noise vas) quite significant and is attributed to the “change in direction of the applied torque and removal of the backlash, Figure 8 shows a printout from the Allen-Bradley/stronberg "Drive Maintenance System (DNS) of the "GEARLESS" sth dryer top section speed response to both a positive and negative speed step identical to that Shown in Figure 7. The first portion of the trend shows the dryer section operating at a constant speed of 1355 FPM when the positive 30 FPM step in the speed reference was introduced. The trend indicates that it takes approximately 0.75 seconds to reach 66.7% for a 1.33 radian response. There does not appear to be any overshoot or mechanical noise. ‘The second portion of the trend shows the effect of renoving the positive 30 FPN step in the speed reference. Tt has the same response as the positive step with no noticeable mechanical noise. Sunnarizing the above results indicate that at least a 2:1 increase in speed responce is available with the gearless dryer drive arrangenents over the geared arrangement. The most obvious reason for the increase is most probably due. to the elimination of, @ryer " gearing which accentuates any torsional problem present. in. the systen. The elimination of this dryer gearing also decreases the anount of time required for tuning related to sophisticated filter @esign or regulator schenes required to avoid the mechanical frequencies that will Grive the speed regulator unstable. Dryer Felts the gearless dryer drive arrangement has Presented a postible disadvantage for the operator when it comes to the replacenent of the felt.” Without the dryer gears, only the felt roils’ with motors will rotate when operating the section. This requires a Gifterent approach when introducing a new felt. In order to get the new felt through the gection, the operators cut the old felt, tie the new felt to it and manually pull the new felt in, while renoving the old. This is not. very. difficult because | of the anti-friction bearings. On the large 5th Gryer section, the old felt’ may be pulled through with the aid of a tractor. The felt roll. drives cannot be operated during this procedure because the felt may cone in Contact with a helper roll which does not have a tach and the resulting load may pull 68 / TAPP! Proceedings it out of synchronization. ‘This will cause the motor to draw high load currents and may cause an Toc (Instantaneous overcurrent) trip of the inverter. Note that this Toc trip will happen regardless of AC or DC paralleled motors. The new drive arrangement has not shown any significant results pertaining to felt life. In the past, the mill” would normally run their dryer felts for at least a year. They did replace the 3rd dryer top felt after 144 days, but the wear could not be attributed to the new drive arrangenent. They are running with a different style of felt, but Ie does not appear to be any worse or better than it was before the rebuild. The operators vere asked if there were any concerns relating to man-hole alignnent, Siphon type or water removal with the absence of the fixed gearing of the dryer rolls. Their basic response vas that they shut down the steam while they are running ‘and the above issues do not becone problems. They also alvays operate the dryers above the rinning speed of 1150 FP. Drive control strategy The start-up of the gearless dryer drives did not take place without some minor changes to the control Strategy of the top and” bottom drive regulation _schene. Initially, the top half of the section was setup to be a hard speed regulator. The bottom half was speed regulated with droop, so that it “would not become unstable when the sheet was introduced through the section and two became tied together. This dia not Work properly, because of unequal loading in the sections due to condensate levels and a variety of other reasons. The top and bottom sections never operated at the sane speed due to” the droop in. the bottom half and, consequently, the sheet could not be threaded through the entire section. ‘The start-up people modified the regulating schene in the bottom dryer section drive to provide for an outer control loop that would Fegulate a zero speed difference between the top and bottom sections. This appeared to work, but was fairly slow responding due to the speea of the outer zero draw loop. It was ultimately determined that both the top "and bottom sections should becone hard speed regulators. This solved the problem of the unequal loading causing the speed to drop off on. the section with droop. The result surprised many of the people who vere familiar with analog drives and experiences that one could. never tie two stiff speed regulators together because they would either go unstable or one would take all of the load and cause the other to regenerate. ‘This Installation strongly demonstrates tha advantages of today's digital drives and their ability to regulate speed vithout anyregard to drift. The only word of caution is that the snaliest change in roll diameter or felt thickness will call for an adjustment in the parameter that defines the roll size. Presently this is a manual adjustment, but it can be changed to make it @ regulated variable ir so determined after additional operating experience. conctusron The drive arrangement described above has been in production since late Noverber, 1989, and has been very successful in providing excellent operation with minimal maintenance. There is no doubt that the gearless dryer drives with paralleled AC motors actually work well and present a umber of advantages for the end user. The mill has considered this installation Complete success and would definitely do this again on future rebuilds. REFERENCES 1 Robert P. Derrick, DRIVE POWER REQUIREMENTS FOR PULP & PAPER MACHINE DRYER SECTIONS, TAPPI 1978. 2. TAPP NOTES, 1986 PAPER MACHINE DRIVES SEMINAR, TAPPI 1986. 2 UNKNOWN, FELT = DRIVEN DRYING CYLINDERS IN” PAPER MACHINES, TSP 414 ~ SKF 1955. 4 Prancis X. Swietlik IIT, DRIVEABILITY OF A DRYER SECTION USING DRYER FELT DRIVES, ‘TAPP ENGINEERING PROCEEDINGS 1989. 5 Michael tL. Eikenberry, Kenneth D. Brink, AC WINDER DRIVE SYSTEM, TAPPI ENGINEERING PROCEEDINGS 1990. 6 aA. R. Fatnis, Don Drewiske, PAPER WACHINE DRIVE REBUILD ENERGY REQUIREMENTS, TAPPI ENGINEERING PROCEEDINGS 1967. 1990 Engineering Conference / 69APPENDIX DESCRIPTION OF VECTOR CONTROL Ina DC machine, the amount of torque that the motor delivers is controlled through a combination of the notor field flux. and the armature current. Torque in an AC machine is comprised of the same elements, hovever, there is only one resultant current that an Ac motor” receives. That current is comprised of the fundamental component and the harmonic component. The harmonic component’ is largely produced by the switching of the inverter and does not produce any useful torque for the machine. The harmonics basically result in heat losses. The fundamental component of. current is the only factor that produces torque in the machine. This current isa resultant of the magnetizing vector (rotor field flux) and the torque producing vector (stator). The magnitude and angle of this resultant vector are controlled through VECTOR CONTROL by manipulating the voltage and frequency to the motor. The amount of volts per hertz controls the magnetization of the motor, while the frequency establishes the stator rotating flux field velocity determining both the basic speed and torque of the motor. This control is implemented through a pulse width modulated (pm) inverter. “The PWM offers high efficiency, low motor harmonic torques, very wide frequency range and simple regulator schenes. ‘The amount of actual torque that the motor is producing can be measured by monitoring the phase currents and their relationship to the Feference voltage. The slip of the machine is a computed quantity that conpares the velocity of the rotating flux field in the rotor (through the 1024 ppr tachoneter) with respect to the rotating flux field in the stator (produced by the output frequency of the inverter). The combination of the tuo elenents provide for extremely accurate torque control. 70 / TAPPI Proceedings ‘APPENDIX.2. LOAD VARIATIONS DUE TO DIFFERENCES IN ROLL DIAMETERS OF PARALLEL MOTORS TORQUE SPEED (RPM) yor__r0 The above curve indicates that the induction motor produces torque linearly fron 0 to 100% over a slip range equivalent to 1.8% oF 13 RPM @ "60 hertz. whe gearless dryer Section has one lead” section motor and at least one helper motor. If the diameters of the driven rolls varied, their rotational speed would also vary. However, because the rolls are locked-in by the felt, the helper motor roll is forced to rotate ‘at the same peripheral speed as the leader. Each of the drive motors are normally sized to carry no greater than 70% ‘of full load. If the helper motor roll diameter is smaller then the leader, it will try to run faster and take a majority of the load away from the leader. A situation could then develop where the helper carries 100% of the total and the leader ends up with 40%, or a 30% Gifference.. If this is considered a worst case situation, it can easily be calculated that a 30t change in load corresponds to a 3.9 RPM change. Tf the lead motor roll diameter is 13.88 inches and the operating RPM for 70% load would normally be 710.9, the calculated Surface speed of the roll is 2583 FPM. Using that same surface speed with a 3.9 RPK change for the helper motor shows that its Gianeter is 13.95 inches. Consequently, the largest possible deviation in roll diameters must never be greater that 13.95 minus 13.88, or 0.076. inches. The roll specs for this example should indicate that the rolls should have a tolerance of 40,038 inches. These are example values only to illustrate the principles involved in determining load sharing ys. diameter plus/minus machining tolerance. The actual ‘felt roll diameter for the Green Bay Packaging machine was 13-85 £0,015 inches.