2.  Technological Challenges or “You Want to Use HOW MANY Transducers?” 
 
The job had many challenges on the instrumentation side of it.  All of the vibration and 
tachometer channels monitored during the speed trial were temporarily mounted on the machine.  
And as can be seen in Figure 1 the paper machine is quite large and preparations were being 
made for roll and felt changes during the following shutdown.  The monitoring equipment and 
cabling had to be placed in such a way as not to interfere with normal day to day operations, or 
the shutdown.   
 
The monitoring equipment was placed at two separate locations.  The first location was near the 
wet end of the dryer just beyond the blue roll on the floor in Figure 1. That equipment monitored 
the former and press sections, as well as a few channels from the back side of the dryer.  The 
instrumentation consisted of:  a 56 channel data acquisition and vibration analysis system; and a 
16 channel digital tape recorder.   
 
The second monitoring location was located at the calender stack end of the dryer.  The 
equipment used there was a 16 channel data acquisition instrument and another 16 channel 
digital tape recorder.   
 
The resulting cabling setups at the monitoring end are shown in Figures 2 and 3.  Bookkeeping 
became its own challenge during the setup.  It was vitally important to be certain that any given 
accelerometer was mounted in the correct location, the correct direction, and was then connected 
to the correct channel on the appropriate instrument. 
 

 

Figure 1.  The paper machine viewed from the former 
section towards the dryer end, showing the front or tending 
side of the machine.  To the right of the paper machine can 
be seen the roll and felt laydown areas needed for the 
shutdown.  Monitoring equipment was located just beyond 
the blue roll at the wet end of the dryer, and at the far end 
of the dryer.