Dryer Section Energy System Measurement and Energy-saving Potential Analysis for a Paper Machine Themed Paper
Dryer Section Energy
System Measurement
and Energy-saving
Potential Analysis for
a Paper Machine
Abstract
Jigeng Li,
Lingbo Kong and
In this paper, a detailed dryer section audit was
Huanbin Liu
conducted on a paper machine to evaluate its energy
State Key Laboratory
performance. The methodology and instruments used
of Pulp and Paper
for field measurements are introduced as an important
Engineering
part of dryer audit. The deficiency points which limit
South China University
drying performance of the paper machine are identified
of Technology,
Guangzhou, based on the tested data. It was found that significant
Guangdong 51064, energy savings can be achieved in the studied paper
China machine.
1. Introduction
Papermaking is an energy and capital intensive process.
For a paper mill, raw materials and energy costs are the
top two largest manufacturing costs. It is estimated that
about 20-30% of total operating costs is consumed by
energy in the form of steam and electricity. Thus, many
paper mills are pursuing energy efficiency ways to
reduce their energy cost. This is especially driven by the
rising cost of energy and environmental awareness in
recent years.
As one of the most important parts in the
papermaking process, the dryer section has a great
impact on the overall energy performance [1]. Although
only approximately 1% of original water is removed in
the dryer section, it still remains the most costly and
energy intensive unit in the papermaking process [2].
The dryer section costs 40% of total capital investment
and consumes more than 60% of total energy used in a
paper machine [3]. In addition, the dryer section is also a
complex unit in which mass and heat transfer
simultaneously [4]. The paper drying is accomplished by
steam and condensate system, air system and heat
recovery system. Since the changes of one part will
affect the other parts of the system, the dryer section
may deviate from the optimal level without a thorough
understanding of the current drying performance. This is
also often ignored by operators due to their lack of
energy management experience. Moreover, the
operators are interested in the paper quality and
production capacity rather than energy cost. Indeed,
some key parameters are seldom monitored nor
adjusted when the operating conditions change.
Therefore, reducing energy consumption by improving
dryer performance has been given a high priority when
energy efficiency programmes are implemented on
paper machines.
It has been also the topic of some recent publications
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to improve the energy performance of the dryer section,
especially from the industrial perspective [5-11].
Mattinsson found that a reduction of energy use would
be achieved if the fresh air’s heating was regulated
[5]. Hill presented five essential rules that can help
papermakers identify the areas and actions in the dryer
section for further measurable opportunities for energy
improvement [6]. Some energy saving opportunities in
paper drying were studied by Reese, Wedel and Chaloux
respectively [7-9]. Since the dryer fabric plays a role in
both heat and mass transfer in the paper drying process,
Lang studied the effect of dryer fabric on the dryer
section energy consumption [10]. Laurijssen et al.
conducted some research on how the energy efficiency
of multicylinder dryers can be optimised and found that
32% of the dryer section’s heat usage could be reduced
[11]. In this paper, a systematic audit of a paper machine
dryer section is implemented to analyse its current dryer
performance. Based on the survey results, significant
energy efficiency improvement opportunities are
identified. It was also recommended that this method to
be used to analyse other similar paper machines for
improving their energy efficiency.
2. Methodology
To have a better understanding of the dryer section for a
paper machine, field testing has to be carried out firstly
to evaluate its present drying performance. Process
parameters, environmental parameters and physical
geometric parameters are to be determined before
analysing the dryer section’s performance.
2.1. Process parameters
The process parameters are the most important
variables that affect the energy performance of a paper
machine dryer section. For the same dryer section
operated under different process parameters, the overall
energy consumption may be varied significantly. The
mass transfer driving force for paper drying is the
difference between partial pressure of water vapour at
the paper web surface and in the surrounding air [12].
The vapour pressure at the web surface and in the
surroundings is related to the web temperature,
moisture content and air humidity. In this context, the
heat transfer is a function of the difference between
temperature of steam and paper web [1]. Therefore, the
process parameters such as the steam pressure, web
moisture content, web temperature and air humidity are
Measurement + Control Vol 45/8 October 2012 239
 Themed Paper Dryer Section Energy System Measurement and Energy-saving Potential Analysis for a Paper Machine

very crucial to the heat and mass transfer process in

paper drying. In addition, the supply and exhaust air
properties have also a direct influence on the dryer
energy consumption.
Steam pressure, flow and differential pressure can be
extracted from the existing distributed control system
(DCS). Assuming that the steam in the cylinders is
saturated, the steam temperature can be calculated
using the Antoine equation. Cylinder surface
temperature has a great impact on the dryer curves. It
provides an indication of the heat transfer capacity of the
dryer section and is one of the measuring process
parameters. However, few mills monitored the dryer
temperature profile alone in the entire dryer section. In
this paper, the contacted thermocouple sensor that is
manufactured by Swema are employed to test the
cylinder temperatures.
Paper moisture content is measured using the NDC
Figure 1: The structure of double-felted dryers
8100-F system with a 104-D sensor. The paper
temperature measurement is proposed by Maggard
horizontally (L1) and vertically (L2), as well as the
[13]. It should be noted that the instrument we used
cylinder diameter (D) can be measured from the
in the field measurement is thermal infrared imaging
drawings. For example in the double-felted configuration
viewer. The temperature test points are located on the
in Figure 1, the contact drying length (Lcp) and free draw
web immediately out of each cylinder.
length (Lpa) can be readily calculated.
The air condition in the pocket and hood is one of
the most important parameters that affect dryer
performance. However, they are seldom monitored and
3. Basic Situation of the Studied Paper
controlled in some mills, especially for those established
Machine
decades ago. They are tested using the Testo 400 robust The web dewatering process is completed in a thermal
humidity probe and vane/temperature probe. The way with groups of steam heated cylinders. The heat is
pocket measuring points is located in the area where transferred in the form of conduction and convection
the web is leaving each cylinder. Dew point is the alternatively. For this case, a paper machine dryer section
temperature at which the air becomes saturated and that consists of 62 iron cylinders was used to illustrate
water vapour begins to condense to liquid water. It is a the audit method thoroughly. The basic operating
function of air temperature and relative humidity and conditions of the studied paper machine are shown in
can be calculated using Equation (2) [14]. The Table 1. It produces paper with the basis weight of
recommended dew point is 25-30 lower than the air 120g/m2 at an average machine speed of 355m/min.
dry bulb temperature within the hood [15]. The production capacity is 250 tons per day.
The air conditions, especially the supply air and
exhaust air humidity, influence the air consumption Parameters Data
greatly. In general, 8-10kg air is required to remove Basis weight 120 g/m2
1kg water vapor for a closed hood whilst the value for
semi-open hood is between 20-30kg air [14]. It is Machine speed 355 m/min
recommended that it be monitored online for these key Web width 4000 mm
parameters in order to see their influence on energy Moisture after press section 55%
efficiency.
Moisture after size station 30%
2.2. Environmental parameters Moisture after dryer section 8%
The environmental parameters have a close relationship Stem flow (mean value) 16.9~19.6 t/h
with the overall energy performance. Indeed, the hot
supply air consumption for removing per unit of water Cylinder diameter 1.5m/1.8m
evaporated varies with environmental conditions. Table 1: Operating conditions
Besides, the energy used for drying in the summer is
lower than that in the winter conditions. Therefore the The pre-dryer group contained 48 cylinders with the
measured environmental parameters should include the diameter of 1.5m, arranged in four steam groups. The
air temperature and humidity in the hood, indoor and steam pressures in different steam groups are presented
outdoor. Testo 400, a robust humidity probe, is used for in Table 2. The steam and condensate system are
measuring these parameters. However, with the small operated at different levels to ensure the optimal drying
range of temperature involved in paper drying section, profiles and drainage. The initial web moisture content
the specific heat is considered constantly. and temperature is 55% and 40-50%, respectively. The
sizing station is used for spreading some non-fibre
2.3. Physical geometric parameters material to the surface of the web.
In this work, the paper drying process is characterised The final dryer group contained 14 cylinders with a
with two distinctive zones: cylinder-paper conductive diameter of 1.8m, arranged in three steam groups. The
drying zone and paper-air convective drying zone. Here purpose of the final dryer section is to remove the water
the effects of dryer fabric on heat and mass transfer are to the final solids of 92% after sizing. The schematic
not considered. The overall drying area should be diagram of the studied dryer section is presented in
determined before calculating the evaporation. Figure 2. The condensate from the prior steam group is
The distance between the adjacent cylinders sent to a condenser, where part of the condensate is

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Dryer Section Energy System Measurement and Energy-saving Potential Analysis for a Paper Machine Themed Paper

Figure 2: Schematic diagram of the studied dryer section

flashed to steam as a lower pressure environment. The Dryer groups Numbers Steam pressure Steam
flashed steam is then led to the next steam group. The (Bar) temperature (°C)
condensate is finally returned to the boiler house which
acts as the supply water to the boiler. This kind of steam Group 1.1 (#1-6) 6 N/A N/A
supply form is the most common multi-phases supply Group 1.2 (#7-14) 8 0.46 111
method that has been applied in the majority of the Group 1.3 (#15-21) 7 1.05 121
multicylinder paper machines.
All of the cylinders are arranged in the traditional Group 1.4 (#22-48) 27 1.60 129
double-felted configuration in the studied dryer section. Group 2.1 (#49-50) 2 0.10 102
It should be noticed that the steam in the final dryer Group 2.2 (#51-52) 2 0.35 108
section was operated at a higher pressure than the
pre-dryer section. The operated value in the final dryer Group 2.3 (#53-62) 10 2.65 140
section is 2.65Bar as compared to 1.6Bar in the Total 62 – –
pre-dryer section in Table 2. The dryer section is enclosed
by a semi-open hood, where the top half of the cylinders Table 2: Dryer section structure and steam properties
is covered with an insulated hood but not covered at the
bottom of the cylinders. The size of the semi-open hood Parameter Value Value
covered in the pre-dryer section is 70m×8m×8m (Units) (Pre-dryer) (Final-dryer)
(length×width×height). There is no hot supply air sent D (m) 1.5 1.8
to the pocket for improving mass transfer in the
L1 (m) 1.9 2.3
semi-open hood. The air is just suctioned to the hood
as a result of negative surrounding pressure in the hood. L2 (m) 1.8 2.1
The air that contained the water evaporated and was α1 (°) 27.8 28.7
exhausted from the hood directly without heat recovery.
α2 (°) 42.5 41.3
According to the statistical data of the case paper
machine, the specific thermal energy consumption is β (°) 219 220
10.75GJ/ton paper, which is higher than the best Lcp (m) 2.87 3.46
practice value of 9.58GJ/ton paper [17]. In order to
Lpa (m) 1.38 1.58
improve its energy performance we surveyed the dryer
section systematically and then identified the energy Lcp+Lpa (m) 4.25 5.04
saving opportunities for the studied paper machine.
Table 3: The geometric parameters
4. Results and Discussion can be calculated further. The drying rate of pre-dryer
The quantity of dewatering in each part of the paper and final-dryer section is 12.25kg/m2h and 12.31kg/m2h,
machine was calculated on the basis of water balance, respectively. It is only half of TAPPI drying rate for
and the results are shown in Figure 3. It shows that corrugating medium. Thus, there are opportunities for
98.5% of water is dehydrated in the wire and press improvement in this dryer section, which can be
section and only 1.5% is removed in the dryer section.
Water in paper: 750 kg/h
However, the dryer section is the most energy intensive 856800 kg H20/h
0.1%
100%
process in terms of thermal energy consumption,
representing more than 80% of thermal energy used in
paper making. The steam flow is ranged from 16.9 to
19.6ton/h with an average value of 18.6ton/h. The Suction system: 819100 kg/h
specific steam consumption could be determined which 95.6%
Press system: 23950 kg/h
is 1.7-1.9 tons steam/ton paper. 2.8%
Dryer system: 13000 kg/h
Table 3 presented the geometric parameters of the 1.5%
dryer section from which the contact and convection
drying areas can be determined. Then the drying rate Figure 3: Dewatering process of paper machine

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 Themed Paper Dryer Section Energy System Measurement and Energy-saving Potential Analysis for a Paper Machine

achieved by either enhancing the machine speed or

turning off some cylinders reasonably at the same
production grade.
Figure 4 shows the temperature of steam, cylinder
and web. The web and cylinder temperatures are
increased gradually either in the pre-dryer or in the final
dryer section, which is in line with industrial experience.
However, there are some questions regarding the
cylinders numbered 28, 42, 47 and 54. Since the
cylinder temperatures at these points are very low,
even close to the web temperature and the cylinders
consumed steam, they did not play any role in the paper
drying process. Besides, the temperature difference
between the steam and the cylinder surface (Ts-Tc) was
higher than 30°C for cylinders numbered 53, 54 and 55.
It also indicates the poor heat transfer with these cylinders.
It was recommended to adjust the steam pressures and
Figure 4: The steam, cylinder and web temperatures
pressure difference according to the drying curve in
order to exhaust the condensate effectively.
Figure 5 shows the air temperature of the pocket
across the dryer section. It can be seen that the
difference of air temperature and dew point is very small
at the beginning of the dryer section. This is not ideal for
paper drying. In fact, it also means that the condition is
poor for paper drying. These questions can also be
identified further from Figure 6 and Figure 7.
Figure 6 and 7 present the air humidity distribution
alone in the dryers. Theoretically, it will be better with a
uniform humidity distribution. However, it is impossible
for the machine equipped with a semi-open hood. It can
be seen that the humidity (either absolute humidity or
relative humidity) is higher at the front part of the dryer
section. However, it begins to reduce from pocket #25,
even decreased to 30 g/kg dry air for pockets #37-48.
This phenomenon is obvious for the studied dryer
section, indicating that there are little water vapour
evaporated from the end of the pre-dryer section.
Figure 5: Pocket air temperatures Figure 8 shows the absolute humidity of air in the
hood at different vertical heights alone in the dryer
section. It can be seen that the air humidity is greater at
the higher points. Besides, for the space neighbouring
cylinders numbered 32-48, the humidity is almost the
same as the indoor air. This corresponds well with the
information presented in Figure 6 and 7. This can be
avoided by either reducing the numbers of cylinders in
the pre-dryer section or installing a ventilate system for
increasing production later. The relative humidity is also
presented with this trend.
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the
air system of the studied paper machine was
unfavourable for paper drying. The air conditions were
investigated further to determine its saving potentials
and the measured data is shown in Table 4.
In this case, the calculated exhaust air flow is
334,700m3/h for pre-dryers and 108,600m3/h for final-
dryers. The air consumption for removing per unit of water
from the hood is 34kg dry airs. The great amount of
Figure 6: Absolute humidity of pocket air exhaust air has to be exhausted with the help of enough
air fans that would correspondingly use more power
energy. If the machine is updated to a closed hood, the
Temperature Humidity Relative above questions would be avoided as only 10kg dry air is
(°C) (g/kg) Humidity (%) required for removing 1kg water. A closed hood requires
Indoor air 34.8 22.5 63.5 only one third of air to remove the same amount of
moisture compared with a semi-open hood. The power
Outdoor air 32.3 20.7 61.2 consumption of the fans can also be decreased by one
Pre-dryer exhaust 52.1 51.7 60.7 third accordingly. Besides, the higher temperature of
Post-dryer exhaust 49.1 52.0 69.8 exhaust air can also increase the amount of recovered
heat. Compared with the semi-open hood, the
Table 4: Measurement results of air conditions refurbished programme shows that 24.5% of the energy

242 Measurement + Control Vol 45/8 October 2012 www.instmc.org.uk

Dryer Section Energy System Measurement and Energy-saving Potential Analysis for a Paper Machine Themed Paper
Figure 7: Relative humidity of pocket air
Figure 8: Absolute humidity of hood air
conservation potential can be achieved, with the specific
thermal energy consumption at only 8.12GJ/t paper.
There are other energy efficiency improvement
opportunities such as preventing steam and condensate
leaking, enhancing the cylinder end cap, adjusting the
steam pressure difference according to the drying curve
and recovering flash steam, etc. Accurate steam flow
metering is also very important. Verifying steam use by
measuring condensate flow to separators and return to
the boiler house is important. By taking web moisture
measurements regularly to confirm the amount of water
evaporated the adjustment of the operating parameters
can be determined.
5. Conclusions
A systematic measurement of paper machine dryer
section aimed at analysing the energy efficiency for paper
drying process was performed in this work. The analysis
methodology and related instruments were also
illustrated. For the steam and condensate system, it has
been observed that too many cylinders were installed at
the beginning or the adjustment of steam pressure was
not reasonable. This was the main cause for the over
drying phenomenon in the end of pre-dryer section.
There are three solutions for these problems: reduce the
cylinder quantities, reduce the steam pressure of the last
steam groups or install a ventilation system. However, the
first two solutions are unavailable when considering the
possibility of increasing production in the future. For
the air system, condensate can occur in the hood,
especially at the beginning of the dryer section. The
recommendation is to recover the waste heat to
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balance out the fresh steam consumption. Among the
energy conservation opportunities, the most effective way
is to update the semi-open hood which can save 24.5%
of total energy consumption for the case machine.
The first step of energy conservation is to monitor
the operating parameters in a timely and accurate
manner. There are some parameters that should be
measured with sensors embedded in the DCS, such as
steam flow to each group, condensate flow out of each
group and air conditions within the hood. The audit
method proposed in this paper can also be applied to
other paper machine dryer sections. It presents a clear
picture about the current drying conditions of paper
machines and also provides some assistance on how
energy efficiency can be improved for the paper drying
process.
6. Acknowledgements
This work was carried out with the financial support from
Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and
Technology (Project No.2010A080801002). Lin Zhizuo,
Yongjun Yin and Hezi Jiang are also acknowledged for
their assistance in the experiment.
7. References
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[2] A.S. Mujumdar, Handbook of industrial drying, 3rd ed.;
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[3] C. Yaroslav, K. Aleksander and S. Lester, Laboratory
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