THE CHALLENGE
The customer has paper and paper board machines that produce over 40,000 metric tons of recycled chip board per year. These machines run approximately 60 to 165 meters per minute. Replacing the shaft couplings are time consuming and downtime is very expensive to the mill.
THE NEED
The driving portion from the output shaft of the reducers to the rollers are connected by a floating shaft, sometimes referred to as a jack shaft. Each roller is driven by a floating shaft that consists of two flex couplings. Accessibility to these couplings are difficult and subsequently maintenance and re-lubrication is a concern. The current couplings were being replaced every 9 to 12 months. The customer required a better solution to ensure unplanned downtime is minimized, extend mean-time between replacement as well as, a better lubrication solution.
THE WAJAX-KOPFLEX SOLUTION
We replaced their existing coupling arrangement with “maintenance free” KopFlexKD (Series KD42) disc couplings. KD® Disc Couplings do not require lubrication or any maintenance and offer several advantages in a paper machine drive assembly:
– No relubrication is required
– Have no backlash
– Dynamically stable
– Not affected by heat or humidity
– Can be inspected while the paper machine is in operation
THE IMPACT
The customer has extended the service life of their paper machine couplings, while minimizing downtime and production revenue losses.
