Effective Shoe Press Venting, 1998 Engineering Conference Proceedings

Shoe presses for board grades have been in operation for seventeen years. These presses, in various configurations, have yielded improvements in sheet dewatering, sheet properties, machine efficiency, and cost. While vented belts, to further improve shoe press performance, were tried in the 1980’s. there was only limited success. More recently, a better understanding on belt design parameters for grooved belts have led to a wider acceptance of this concept, and a greater degree of success. Early pilot machine trials predicted this.

Pilot machine work also indicated the application of shoe presses for printing paper grades has merit. Since 1994, .- the number of shoe presses for printing paper grades ordered has passed sixty, with approximately thirty running to date. Almost all of these machines have seen an improvement in performance with vented belts, blind drilled or grooved.

A series of pilot machine trials by AI and Beloit was run to study the performance characteristics of grooved and blind drilled belts, and the inter-relationships with press fabric design and operating conditions for various paper grades.

This paper will present the pilot machine studies, and the result of the comparisons.

Furthermore, production field trials will be presented, confirming the results of the pilot studies, and providing a significant body of knowledge leading to the conclusion that a grooved belt structure provides the greatest benefit compared to other belt constructions.