Startup and commissioning procedures for electronically line-shafted paper machine drives

Electronic line-shafting control has demonstrated very promising features when applied to paper machine drives. To apply this new control methodology, it is necessary to develop a starting procedure for each individual section and a method for setting the parameters of the virtual line-shaft drive and in-shafts. This paper proposes and evaluates startup and commissioning procedures for electronically line-shafted paper machine drives. The procedure for acceleration of the individual sections is implemented using virtual, variable-ratio gearboxes that emulate the physical clutches and conical pulleys used in the era of line-shafts. System stiffness is implemented using virtual in-shafts with active damping. Evaluation shows that the proposed virtual clutch/conical pulley assembly and active damping allow smooth acceleration of each section and maintain well behaved response during load disturbances for all operating conditions, even with different number of sections effectively connected.