CONSIDERATIONS WHEN APPLYING ASDS IN CONTINUOUS-PROCESSES

Proper use of adjustable speed drives (ASD's) in any application requi res informed considerations of many issues, When that application is a n integral part of a continuous process, the implications of those con siderations, in financial terms, can be greatly magnified, By definiti on, in this paper, a continuous process is any process in which the pr oduct being manufactured hows through the manufacturing cycle with no interruption or intermediate storage or lag. Therefore, any interrupti on to that process will halt the entire manufacturing flow, with impli cations ranging from just lost production to extremely costly implicat ions like repair, re-stringup, or removal of polymers that have ''set up'' in piping, etc, Paraphrasing a real estate motto, when applying A SD's in a continuous process, the three most important factors are rel iability, reliability, and reliability. The requirement for the high l evel of reliability, along with state-of-the-art potential solutions d ealing with power quality issues, will be presented.