What is the Best Tension for my Product?, 2006 PLACE Conference
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Tension is the most common control on web machinery. Good tension control is required to reduce waste and downtime. However, before you can effectively design much less operate tension controls, you must know what tension is best for your process and product. You must also know how much variability is tolerable. There are many places you might get answers to tension questions such as these. There are several publications that have suggested tension tables for common materials. Even if your particular material is not tabulated, there are guidelines based on thickness or strength that may work. However, these sources are merely starting points. They do not offer much help in the plant to modify the starting points based on conditions. An analogy is speed limits for automobiles. Posted limits offer little guidance for selecting speeds which best keeps up with fast-moving traffic or which accommodate inclement conditions. This paper offers a progression of ever-better answers on how to set tension for your product and process. It considers all important sources of information such as experience, experiment and, most importantly, economics.