VACUUM DEWATERING OPTIMIZATION WITH DIFFERENT FURNISHES

Dewatering by vacuum on flatboxes and couch rolls consumes a lot of el ectrical energy on a paper machine. Power loss and wear due to frictio n between a wire and flatbox covers emphasize the optimizing vacuum su ction time. The role of the vacuum level and its dwell time in wire se ction dewatering was studied with a new kind of tester. The test metho d developed was applied to the prediction of dewatering profiles on mo dern printing paper machines. A comparison between the dewatering pred iction and gamma gauge field measurements is presented.