The lubrication systems of a pulp drying machine

Abstract

The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis was to create a collective database on pulp drying machine’s lubrication systems to be of use as onboarding material and-or alongside machine design guidelines, as the current methods and accessible information did not serve the design engineering process nor the project management with desired efficiency.

The thesis was administrated by Valmet Technologies Oy and executed alongside the pulp drying unit’s machine design engineering teams located in Ulvila and Raisio. The prior working ways primarily relied on the design engineers’ expertise, causing excessive working hours and need for communication due to unorganised files or complete lack thereof. The objective came from eliminating any risks of possible delays alongside reducing the workload of machine design engineering teams and ultimately improving the performance of projects’ design processes.

The research consisted of partially interview-based data collection, utilising comparative research methods i.e., recognising system characteristics for wet end, dryer, and cutter layboy by observing the technical drawings, bills of materials and system diagrams of real-life projects.

As a result, a description of the system components, used materials and typical lubrication points were determined in the previously mentioned formats. Any fac tors concerning machine engineering in pulp drying unit’s design phase have been accounted for, however further research is advised to enable accurate estimations or other actions for machine configurations outside the scope of this research.