Comparative Coupling Selections For High Performance Drive Systems, 1997 Process Control, Electrical & Info. Conference Proceedings

Pulp and paper mills provide a myriad of applications including chippers, conveyors, agitators, pumps, mixers, pulpers, winders, calenders, dryers, and paper rolls to name a few, for shaft couplings.

No one single design type is the best for all these applications and their diverse requirements. This presentation is specifically aimed at high performance AC or DC drive systems, such as those applied on electrical sectional paper machines, super calenders, winders, rereelers, coaters, and couch rolls. We have chosen a typical machine application to illustrate some of the design considerations and coupling operational characteristics that the system design engineer.

OEM, electrical drive supplier, and End User should weigh in making the final coupling selections. There are at least four (4) commonly recognized shaft coupling design types: gear, grid, elastomer, and disc for industrial applications. Current world-wide practice for high performance drive systems is to use either gear or disc designs on practically all installations. As such, this paper will focus on these designs alone.