Paper Machine Vibration Monitoring & Condition Monitoring
Improve visibility into the mechanical condition of critical rotating equipment across the paper machine. Continuous vibration monitoring can help maintenance teams identify developing bearing, alignment, balance and drivetrain problems earlier and plan maintenance around production instead of unexpected failures.
A paper machine is a connected vibration environment
Motors, gearboxes, rolls, pumps, fans and vacuum systems operate on mechanically connected structures. Vibration can travel through frames, bearing housings and foundations, making isolated spot measurements difficult to interpret. Continuous trends provide the history needed to separate recurring process behaviour from a developing machine fault.
Monitoring across the production line
- Forming: monitor drives, rolls, pumps and auxiliaries while accounting for moisture, spray and lower-speed measurement requirements.
- Press: robust sensor mounting and protected cabling are important around water, chemicals, rolls and felt circuits.
- Dryer: sensor temperature capability becomes important around steam-heated cylinders and higher operating temperatures.
- Calender, reel and finishing: bearing housings, roll condition and drive components can be monitored according to machine configuration and criticality.
Typical assets and faults
Useful measurement points can include main and sectional drives, electric motors, gearboxes, roll bearings, fans, blowers, vacuum pumps and process pumps. Vibration analysis can support detection of bearing deterioration, imbalance, misalignment, mechanical looseness and gear-related problems.
Distributed monitoring with Istec VibSys A01
The Istec VibSys A01 is a compact four-channel vibration monitoring and gateway platform. Units can be located close to selected machine sections, helping reduce long analogue sensor cable runs and allowing monitoring coverage to grow in stages.
VibSys is not tied to Istec sensors. It accepts compatible 2-wire IEPE accelerometers, so the sensor can be selected for the actual measurement point, environmental conditions and existing plant standard.
For paper-machine applications, sensor selection should consider operating speed, required frequency range, temperature, moisture or chemical exposure, mounting method and cable routing.
Condition monitoring—not machinery protection
VibSys is intended for machine-health monitoring, trending and diagnostics. Safety-critical machinery protection, trip and shutdown functions should use an appropriate dedicated protection architecture.
Start with critical assets
You do not need to instrument an entire paper machine at once. A practical project can begin with critical drives, gearboxes, rolls or auxiliaries and expand as the maintenance team builds useful condition trends.
Istec VibSys A01
€2,499.00 / unit
Four vibration channels for compatible IEPE sensors, with local processing and connectivity for scalable condition monitoring.
Planning a paper-machine monitoring project?
Send us the machine section, critical assets, operating speeds, measurement-point count and environmental requirements. OEM Nordic can help define the VibSys units, IEPE sensors, cabling and monitoring scope.
Request a vibration monitoring proposal →
Application guidance developed from Istec technical material for vibration monitoring in pulp and paper machinery.