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UPM Shotton Paper relies on a series of drives to feed paper
machines for the production of more than 500,000 tons of newspaper annually.
The reliance on these drives coupled with the desire to cut costs and reduce
downtime led the company to investigate a refurbishment program from ABB in
Sweden.
ABB began by identifying reasons behind the downtime of the low
voltage AC drives. They initially believed that spikes in the power supply
network may be harming the drives' semiconductors, but a network analysis
disproved that theory.
After another failure, a drive was sent in for full
analysis. From that, engineers deduced that the drives had dry solder joints on
the power semiconductor units. Over the course of six months, ABB took UPM's
drives four at a time and refurbished them. As part of the refurbishment
process, they replaced power semiconductor modules and fans in the 36 drives.
Each drive was finished in a day and then underwent batch
testing before it was returned to UPM. Since the drive makeover, UPM reports
that they've seen an increase in drive reliability and decrease in downtime and
costly repairs.
Do you refurbish drives or replace them?
Source: Plant
Engineer
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Re: Drive Refurbishment Improves Uptime at Paper Plant
