GB2230761A

GB2230761A - Web reel changing

Info

Publication number: GB2230761A
Application number: GB9006812A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Mauri Aavaluoma
Original assignee: Valmet Paper Machinery Inc
Current assignee: Valmet Paper Machinery Inc
Priority date: 1989-04-24
Filing date: 1990-03-27
Publication date: 1990-10-31
Also published as: FI891940A0; SE9001268L; JPH02293489A; SE9001268D0; CA2015025A1; DE4009669A1; CN1047125A; GB9006812D0; AU5313090A; FI891940A; FR2646182A1

Description

Method in the finishing of paper or board The invention concerns a method

in the finishing of paper or board, wherein reeling of the web arriving from a paper machine, coating machine, or equivalent onto reeling drums is carried out, in which method full reels are transferred from the reeling station or stations to an unwind stand or stands, and in which method the empty reeling drums that become free in the unwind stand or stands are transferred to said reeling station or stations.

In the location of paper or board finishing equipment, such as calenders, slitters, and unwinders and rewinders, in a paper mill, consideration must be given to a number of factors. One of the most important points of view is the principal line of production. The various apparatuses must be placed so that, in the principal line of production, it is possible to proceed smoothly without unnecessary displacing or lifting of reels. The running of the principal product in the plant is also important. The lifting capacity and its op- timized utilization are also related to the locations of the various finishing apparatuses. Consideration should also be given to joint utilization of operating personnel for different apparatuses.

It is known in prior art to place, e.g., supercalenders in two stories, among other things, in order that the lifting height of the crane should not become unduly high. It is also known in prior art to place an unwind stand at the machine level.

In the following, constituting a starting point of the present invention, a typical prior-art installation of finishing equipment as well as an arrangement of transfer of paper reels and circulation of reeling drums will be described. When supercalenders placed one opposite the other are used, of which said supercalenders there may be several units placed side by side, a typical arrangement is such that the unwind stands of the supercalender are placed at the machine level, and the rewinders are placed at the basement level one opposite the other. The complete reels are transferred by means of the 2 overhead cranes in the paper machine hall to slitters, which are placed in the same line with the supercalenders. In a corresponding way, from the unwind stand of the slitter, the empty reeling drums are also transferred by means of an overhead crane onto supports placed above the rewind station of the supercalender.

As comes out from the above, in a way known in prior art, overhead cranes are used both for the transfer of full reelsand for the circulation of empty reeling drums. This increases the number of necessary overhead cranes and may cause disturbance in smooth running of the production especially when overhead cranes are loaded by other work, e.g. servicing work. The requirement of manpower is also quite high, and transfers taking place by means of overhead cranes cannot be automated. The operation of overhead cranes also involves certain safety risks.

The object of the present invention is to provide a novel method of the sort concerned by means of which the major part of the drawbacks discussed above can be avoided.

It is a particular object of the invention to provide such a method for the transfer of full reels and for the related circulation of empty reeling drums by whose means the subsequent operations of the various apparatuses can be arranged as taking place automatically upon completion of the preceding operation, so that the operating personnel does not have to take care of starting of the operations. A further aim with this objective is that the number of operating personnel can be even lowered, and the extra operators needed in special situations and in the case of disturbance are, as a rule, available at other machines.

It is a particular object of the invention to provide such a method of the sort concerned by means of which it is even possible to reduce the number of overhead cranes.

It is a further object of the invention to provide such a method of the sort concerned wherein the different operations can be automated as taking place in a smoother way and more rapidly so that a certain 1 L 3 finishing equipment and finishing process can serve for a paper machine of a higher production capacity.

In view of achieving the objectives stated above and those that will come out later, the invention is mainly characterized in that in the method the reels wound on reeling drums are transferred from the reeling station to the unwind stand, as well as empty reeling drums are transferred from the unwind stand to the reeling station by making use of transfer means and rail arrangements arranged permanently between said stands and stations, and that said transfer means and rail arrangements are controlled by means of sequence automation so that, upon completion of a preceding step in the transfer of a reeling drum or reel, the next transfer step takes place automatically without manual starting.

is In the following, the invention will be described in detail with reference to an exemplifying embodiment of the invention illustrated in the figures in the accompanying drawing, the invention being by no means strictly confined to the details of said embodiment.

Figure 1 shows the initial end of a finishing process fitted at the end of a paper machine in the same production line with the paper machine, from the last drying cylinder in the paper machine up to the rewinding station of the supercalender.

Figure 2 shows the final end of the finishing process from the rewinding station of the supercalender up to the slitter.

In the accompanying drawing, owing to the available size of drawing, it has been necessary to illustrate a finishing process in accordance with the invention in two separate figures, so that Fig. 1 shows the initial end of the finishing process and Fig. 2 shows its final end up to the slitter. In Figs. 1 and 2, the vertical planes A-A are indicated, which coincide with each other.

In Figs. 1 and 2, the machine level is denoted with the reference numeral 100 and the basement level with the reference numeral 200 and the height difference between them with H. At the left side in 4 Fig. 1, the last drying cylinder 10 and the upper wire 11 in the paper machine are shown. From the last drying cylinder 10 the web W. is passed via the machine calender 12 and the guide roll 13 to the reel-.up 20, which is. e.g., a pope-type reel-up or equivalent, the web WO being wound, in a way in itself known, onto an empty reeling drum T3, which has been brought into connection with the reeling cylinder 21 of said reel-up, in the reeling station RK1. The full reels Rl move forwards, supported by the end portions of the reeling drums, along pairs of rails 22, in connection with which 10 there is a necessary number of retarding and stopping stations.

The pairs of rails 22 are in the same production line with the paper machine, and in connection with them, before the unwind stand RA1, there is a reel carriage 23, on whose support a full reel R2 can be supported. The carriage 23 can be transferred in the transverse direction on its wheels along rails 24 onto another production line so as to take out or fetch a reel onto the line. The reel R2 can be transferred by means of a mechanism 25 onto the supports 26 into the unwind stand RA1 of the supercalender 30, the reel placed in said position being denoted with the reference R3.

After the reel R3 has been unwound and guided completely, in the unwind stand 26 an empty reeling drum becomes free and is transferred by means of the lever mechanism 27 to the position T1, from which reeling drums, rolling while supported on their end portions, are transferred further on the pairs of rails 28 inclined downwards at an angle a. The pairs of rails 28 are provided with retarding and stopping stations 29, which ensure that the reeling drums T roll at a sufficiently low speed and while retaining their alignment to the waiting station T2 placed above the reel-up 20. The first empty reeling drum T3 placed on the remote-controlled stopping device 28a is in the position from which the primary forks of the reel-up 20 fetch it and transfer it to the reeling position placed in connection with the reeling cylinder 21.

t In the way described above, a closed circulation of reeling drums T is provided, which is arranged as guided by a control unit 90 (shown schematically only). The control unit 90 gives the control impulses P1... PN to the various devices which control and accomplish the circulation of the reeling drums and the transfer of the reels R. Moreover, at the control unit 90, feedback signals fl... fK arrive, for example, from various detectors (not shown) placed in connection with.the rails 22 and 28 as well as with the transfer devices 23, 25 and 27. Thus, being controlled by the sequence automation, the various operations can be interlinked so that the individual opera tions, which were manual and carried out by means of an overhead crane in prior art, take place automatically upon completion of the preceding operation. In such a case, the operating personnel does not have to take care of the starting and stopping of the various operations.

From the reel R3, the web W, is unwound and passed to the super calender 30, in connection with which there is a calender stack, which is supported on the basement level 200 and in which, in a way in itself known, there are soft and hard rolls 32 placed one above the other in the calender stack. At the front side of the calender 30, mounted on the frame 34, there are storage spaces for reserve rolls 32Y. The supercalender 30 has a crane 35 of its own, e.g., for roll replacement and other minor servicing operations. The frame of the supercalender 30 is denoted with the reference numeral 33. From the supercalender, the web W2 is passed around the guide rolls 36 to the rewinding unit RK2 of the supercalender.

As is shown in Fig. 2, the web W2 arriving from the supercalender 30 is wound in the rewinding unit RK2 into a reel R5 on a reeling drum T, which is passed to the reel-up 40 from a vertical conveyor 70 from the position T5A. A full reel R5 is transferred from the reeling unit 40 by means of a transfer mechanism 42 to the position R6 and from there further onto a reeling-drum carriage 43, on which the reel R7, which has been placed on support of the carriage, can be transferred on the wheels of the carriage 43 and on transverse rails 44 to another processing line. Alternatively, by means of the car riage 43, a reel can be brought into the processing line shown in the figures and be transferred along the rails 44 into the position R8.

From the position R8, the transfer mechanism 45 transfers the reel 6 to the position R9A, wherein it is supported by the support members of a lift device 50 essential for the invention when the support members 51 of the lift device are in their lower positions 51A. The lift device 50 includes a pair of support members 51, which are displaced synchronously with each other by means of a drive mechanism in itself known, which may comprise, e.g., a chain transmission, a hydraulic cylinder, or some other, equivalent motor. It is essential for the operation of the lift device 50 that it transfers the reels from the position R9A from the basement level 200 onto the machine 10 level 100 into the position Rgy.

In Fig. 2, the reels Rgy resting on the support members Sly in the upper position are transferred further through a gate 61, which is pivotable around articulation shafts 62, when the gate is in its lower position, onto the rails 60, which rest on vertical beams 65. In connection with the pairs of rails 60, there is a reeling-drum carriage 63, onto which the real R10 can be shifted. The reel Rll resting on the carriage 63 can be transferred on the carriage 63 wheels and the rails 64 onto another line, or correspondingly a reel can be brought on the carriage onto the processing line shown in the figures. After the carriage 63, reels supported on the rails 60 and placed in various stopping stations are denoted with the reference R12. The last one of the reels R12 is transferred by means of a transfer mechanism to the unwind position RA2 of the slitter 80.

When a reel R13 placed in the unwind position RA2 is emptied, an empty reeling drum T becomes free and is transferred by means of a lifting mechanism 66 onto support of a pair of rails 68 placed above the unwind position RA2, in which position an empty reeling drum T4 is shown. The pair of rails 68 is inclined downwards at an angle a, and in connection with it there are stopping and retarding stations 67, which ensure undisturbed transfer of empty reeling drums T4 from the position T4 to the position T5. The angle a is, as a rule, within the range of a - 1.0... 1.50. In connection with the lower ends of the rails 68, there is a vertical conveyor 70, which includes pairs of supports 71, which, in their upper positions 7ly, support the empty reeling drum T5Y, which is transferred by means of the vertical conveyor 70 to the lower position T5A, the supports 71 0 7 being at that time in the position 71A, to above the rewinding station RK2 of the supercalender. From the position T5A, the empty reeling drum T is transferred onto the supports of the rewinding station RK2, and a new reel R5 is wound onto said reeling drum T.

The circulation R5... R13 of the reels wound onto the reeling drums T can be arranged as taking place under automatic control by means of control impulses P of the control unit 90 without using an overhead crane or corresponding cranes. Moreover, it is an essential feature of the invention that the circulation of the reeling drums T, which includes the transfer of empty reeling drums from the unwind position RA2 to the rewind position RK2, also takes place under automatic control by the control unit 90 without transfers by means of overhead cranes and/or without manual operations.

It is an essential feature of the operation of the system 90 that controls and monitors the method of the invention that, owing to the monitoring signals fl... fK, the system is aware of the state of the finishing process at each particular time. The signals fl... fK are received from various limit switches, photocells, angle detectors, or equivalent, by means of which the running of the reels and of the reeling drums and the operation stages of the various transfer devices are monitored. The system 90 gives the control impulses pl... PN on the basis of the control data fed into the system 90. A suitable amount of "intelligence" can be programmed into the system 90, so that the operation of the finishing lines in different situations can be optimized. The system 90 can be accomplished by means of a process computer, microprocessors, or by means of programmable logics, as well as by means of various detectors and control devices and actuators in themselves known.

The invention can be applied in highly different finishing lines. In stead of a paper machine, in the exemplifying embodiment shown in Figs. 1 and 2 there may be, for example, a coating machine, and in the position of the supercalender there may be a softcalender or equivalent.

8 The invention is suitable for use in all such combinations of finishing equipment in which transfer of reels from a winding position to an unwinding position and return transfer of empty reeling drums from the unwinding position to the winding position are required. It is also an essential feature of the invention that the various transfers take place as controlled by sequence automation without necessity to employ an overhead crane or equivalent cranes, which said cranes also have other duties. In this way, an undisturbed, smoothly operating transfer of reels and circulation of reeling 10 drums are accomplished.

In the following, the patent claims will be given, whereby the various details of the invention may show variation within the scope of the inventive idea defined in said claims and differ from the details 15 described above for the sake of example only.

9

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. Method in the finishing of paper or board, wherein reeling of the web (W) arriving from a paper machine, coating machine, or equivalent onto reeling drums (T) is carried out, in which method full reels are transferred from the reeling station or stations (RK1,RK2) to an unwind stand or stands (RA,,RA2), and in which method the empty reeling drums (T) that become free in the unwind stand or stands (RA1,RA2) are transferred to said reeling station or stations (R1(1, RK2), c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that in the method the reels wound on reeling drums (T) are transferred from the reeling station (RK1,RK2) to the unwind stand (RA1,RA2), as well as empty reeling drums (T) are transferred from the unwind stand (RA1,RA2) to the reeling station (RK1,RK2) by making use of transfer means (50,70) and rail arrangements (22,28,44,60,67) arranged permanently between said stands and stations, and that said transfer means (50,70) and rail arrangements are controlled by means of sequence automation so that, upon completion of a preceding step in the transfer of a reeling drum (T) or reel (R), the next transfer step takes place automatically without manual starting.

2. Method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that in the method full reels (R9A) are transferred from the basement level (200) to the machine level (100) by making use of a lifting stage, which is carried out by means of a lift device (50) (Fig. 2).

3. Method as claimed inclaim 1 or 2, characterized in that in the method empty reeling drums (T1,T4) which become free from an unwind stand or stands (RA1,RA2) are transferred along pairs of rails (28,68), placed above the transfer path (22,60) for full reels (R), to the reeling station (RK1) or to above same (RK2).

4. Method as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that, as said pairs of rails (28,68), a transfer arrangement for empty reeling drums (T) is used that is inclined downwards in its transfer direction at a small angle (a), which is preferably within the range of a - 1... 20, and that operates by the force of gravity.

5. Method as claimed inclaim 3 or4, characterized in that empty reeling drums (T) are transferred from the position (T5y) placed at the lower end of said pair of rails (68') by means of a vertical conveyor (70) or by means of the primary forks of a pope- type reel-up to a lower position (TSA), from which the empty reeling drum (T) is transferred further onto the support of the reel-up (20,40), and a reel (R5) is wound onto said reeling drum.

6. Method as claimed in any of the claims 1 to 5, c h a r a c - t e r i z e d in that the method is used in a finishing process wherein the web (W,) that arrives from a board or paper machine (10,11) or from a coating machine is passed to the reel-up (20), the reels wound on said reel-up being transferred under automatic control along rails (22) or equivalent to an unwind stand (RA,), from which the empty reeling drums (T1) are transferred along pairs of rails (28), fitted above said rails (22) and inclined (a) towards the reelup (RK1), to the position (T3), from which the empty reeling drums (T) are transferred by means of the transfer members of the reel-up (20) to the reeling position.

7. Method as claimed in claim 6, characterized in that said unwind stand (RA,) is the unwind stand of a supercalender (30) and that the rewind station (RK2) of said supercalender (30) is placed at the basement level (200), from which the full reels (R) are transferred by a lift device (50) to the machine level (100).

8. Method as claimed in any of the claims 1 to 7, c h a r a c t e r i z c d in that, after the rewind station (RK2) of the supercalender or equivalent, the full reels (R) are transferred under automatic control along rails (44,60) or equivalent to an unwind stand (RA2), from which the empty reeling drums (T) that become free are transferred along downwards inclined pairs of rails (68), in connection with which there are stopping stations (67), to above the reeling station (RK,).

9. Method as claimed in claim 8, characterized in that in the method, from the rewind station (RK2) of a supercalender (30) or equivalent, full reels (R) are transferred first on first rails (44), whereupon the full reels (R9A) are raised from the basement level (200) to the machine level (100) by means of a lift device (50), from whose support the full reels (Rgy) are transferred along second rails (60) to an unwind stand (RA2), which is preferably 5 the unwind stand of a slitter (80), and that the empty reeling drums (T) that become free from the unwind stand (RA2) are raised by means of a transfer mechanism (66) onto the support of pairs of rails (68), which are placed above, which are inclined (a) downwards, and along which the empty reeling drums (T) roll to above said rewind station (RK2), from where the empty reeling drums (T5y) are transferred by means of the supports (71) of a vertical conveyor (70) to the lower position (T5A), from which the empty reeling drums (T) are transferred further onto the support of the rewind station (RK2) and the reeling is carried out, whereupon the stages described above are repeated as a closed circulation under control by sequence automation without transfers by overhead cranes and without manual transfer or control operations.

10. Method as claimed in claim 1, substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the drawings.

11. Paper or board which has been finished by a 5 method as claimed in any of claims 1 to 10.

Published 1990 atThe Patent Office, State House, 6671 High Holborn, LondonWC1R4TP.Puther copies maybe obtainedfroniThe Patent 0Mce. Sales Branch. St Mary Cray. Orpington. Kent BR5 3RD. Printed by Multiplex techniques ltd. St Mary Cray. Kent. Con. P87