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A pulp and paper mill in Sweden uses a 3300 Series Monitoring System to detect plate clash on four double-disk pulp
refiners. Recently, a cold water leak from the area between the disks to the rotor behind one of the disks
resulted in a rotor bow. The 3300 System detected high vibration on the driver side of the refiner (motor driven)
and immediately shut down the machine. Upon investigation, the root cause (the leak) was found and a bowed shaft was
surmised. The machine was run at low speed while heating the rotor with steam in order to straighten the bow, and the
machine was returned to production within one hour. This event occurred less than 4 weeks after the plate clash
detection system installation. Lacking this monitoring system, a more severe failure than a correctable shaft bow
would have occurred, and all pulp production to the two paper machines would have been halted for a minimum of 16 hours.
This single event resulted in a return on investment (ROI) for their monitoring system of 156% in just four weeks,
in terms of pulp cost alone. It does not take into account the value of lost steam for processes elsewhere in the
plant, which yields an even higher ROI. As a result, the customer will be installing similar systems on two additional
refiners later this year.
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