WEB HANDLING

A basic guide to web guiding

By David R. Roisum, Ph.D., principal, Finishing Technologies, Inc.

Introduction path. Table 1 lists a few of the more common. However,

Y our web’s path may not be where you want it. One
remedy is to find and correct the original source of
the path upset. This might be as simple as moving the
even long before building a machine, it is most important
for the designer to shorten web spans, particularly between
key processes, such as between the slitting section and
unwinding roll over sideways a bit. More often, it is not the windup [4]. During installation, you want to make
quite that easy. Another remedy is to change the path of absolutely certain that sections share a common centerline.
the web using an active guide. Under ideal conditions, Also prudent during installation is to make sure that every
you might achieve hairsbreadth (0.005-in. / 125-micron) single roller is aligned to something like hairsbreadth
accuracies. Those ideals include requiring only modest path- tolerances.
correction rates and distances, clean-cut and straight web
edges, as well as good sensors, good guide mechanicals and Once a machine is running, a path-excursion histogram can
good controls, be made to pinpoint and quantify the largest sources. This
can be done as simply as with a witness line [5] on a roller
Guiding is one of the oldest of the web-handling sciences. where path is recorded by a cellphone camera or as fancy as
The first Ph.D. thesis, as far as I know, was by the “father of an edge sensor that can be easily moved to audit the entire
web handling,” Dr. John Shelton, way back in 1968 [1]. His machine. In any case, it is best to start by identifying your
Ph.D. advisor was Dr. Karl Reid, dean of the engineering specific path-upset causes and reducing them to the extent
department and the founder of the Web Handling Research practicable before working with guides.
Center. Guiding was the subject of some dozen other theses
and 200 other publications. So, why should this history Guide types
matter to the industry, in general, and you, in particular? It The unwind guide, shown in Figure 1, has the task of
is because most of what you would need to know to design, getting the web started in a more consistent CD location,
buy, maintain, operate and troubleshoot a guide already despite inconsistencies in unwind-roll positioning as well
has been laid out by others; all you have to do is either find as roll offsets and telescoping, providing that the correction
one of the handful of individuals who knows the subject distance and rate are not too high. Note how the first roller
thoroughly or read about it yourself [2]. must move with the unwind and that the sensor must be
located just before, on or just after that specific roller.
Unfortunately, a few builders have not always done their This sensor position rule is common to all guides and will
homework [3]. If builders bent a few rules, customers may improve response times as well as reduce sensor noise due
end up with a guide that can’t correct very far or very fast. to web-edge curl or flutter.
If builders broke a rule or two,
the guide may be dysfunctional
because it destabilizes the web
path. However, it also is possible
that the customer has unrealistic
expectations about what physics
allows and current technologies
are capable of. So, what do we
need to know about this must-
know area of web handling?

Sources of path upsets

The world is not perfect, and that
includes rollers and webs and
other factors that can affect web FIGURE 1. Unwind and winder guide

68 www.convertingquarterly.com • 2023 Quarter 2

 The winder guide, also shown in Figure 1, has the task
of winding more square-edged rolls to improve roll
appearance, if not make the rolls more useable. This guide
is similar to the unwind except that the roller is stationary,
and the sensor is mounted to the windup frame (again, quite
close to that key roller). Winder guides are less common
because winders are more involved pieces of equipment,
so often an intermediate guide is placed just prior to the
stationary windup instead.

The steering guide, shown in Figure 2, improves web-

path position somewhere in the middle of a machine. This
might be indicated if the total web path is long. Because the
FIGURE 2. Steering guide moving roller tilts, in-plane roller misalignment results and
because that is the correction mechanism. In-plane bending
requires very long spans to avoid diagonal wrinkling or
overstressing a web and is thus relegated to only a few
special situations, such as found in the metal industry or on
long air-floatation ovens in the converting industries. Also
required is traction because the web moves sideways to
comply with the normal entry law. If traction is lost, the web
might not be moved or even move in the opposite direction.
Of course, there are many other design requirements that
must be considered [2].

The displacement guide, shown in Figure 3, also improves

web-path position somewhere in the middle of a line.
However, because this guide does not have in-plane roller
misalignment and bending, it does not require as long of
spans. Still, there is twisting of the ingoing and outgoing
spans so that minimum span lengths must be observed, even
if they need not be nearly as long as the steering guide.
FIGURE 3. Displacement guide
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 WEB HANDLING
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You may find conveyor belts and some industries [3] overstress the web, not guide at all or even destabilize the
pivoting a roller from one end, such as seen in Figure 4. position of the web. Those conditions are easy to recognize
Also, wrap angles may not be 90º, as we’ve shown in because the operator will turn the guide off under certain
the previous two intermediate guides. However creative, conditions or even permanently.
flexible and inexpensive these designs might be, they will
at best always suffer from smaller correction capabilities Finally, textiles and few industries use a slack web guider,
and slower response. At worst, the guide may wrinkle or as shown in Figure 5. These are canted-edge nipped mini-
rollers that are turned on and
off in a jittery fashion. If one
side is engaged, the web is
pulled toward that side. If
both sides are engaged, the
guider becomes a spreader. It
also is possible to move the
web sideways by moving a
roller axially. However, these
devices are capable of only
FIGURE 4. End-pivoted roller tiny corrections, depending on
the maximum speed and travel
of the roller.

Control architecture
Of course, those are just the mechanicals. We’ve
yet to talk about the control architecture that
moves the mechanicals. Let’s start with the edge
sensor. By far the most common is an infrared
light source paired with a detector. The reason
is that it is inexpensive (except for wide-array
sensors), fast and immune to most disturbances
(provided that the sensor is located very near
a roller to stabilize the web). However, there
are applications where pneumatic, ultrasonic,
paddles or cameras are better suited to the task.

Before we leave sensors, let me stress the

FIGURE 5. Slack web guider absolute importance of (almost) always including
dual sensors for the front and back edges for the
reasons listed in Table 2. Even if the machine might not
currently benefit from two sensors, it might in the future.
TABLE 1. Factors affecting the web path
Even if that machine never would benefit from two sensors,
Steady State (stable path, you have the advantage of having only one control box for
but not in desired position) (nearly) all machines in the plant and even company. That
• Span lengths too long especially is true if that box also is capable of oscillation,
• Offset centerline of machine sections which requires the addition of only two sections of control
• Unwind roll not centered code and no new mechanicals.
• In-plane roller misalignment

Dynamic (unstable path) So, when we put all the control elements together, we get
• Poor splices – offset and angular something like the schematic shown in Figure 6. Inputs or
• Uneven nips commands from the operator are on the left and data about
• In-plane roller misalignment + marginal traction web width and position is on the right. The feedback is the
• Unwind roll offsets and telescoping (hopefully dual) sensor coming in the top. The part that
• Air entrainment and flotation
• Baggy webs does the actual work of moving equipment is some type
• Poor guide configuration of electric, pneumatic or hydraulic controller, depending
• Vibration mostly on the size (weight) of the equipment needing
moving.
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 WEB HANDLING
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TABLE 2. Basic reasons for dual sensors

Spare sensor
Improved resolution
• (two sensors can be better than one)
Wrinkle detection
Raw-material width change
Change in moisture / temperature
Changes in tension (low modulus)
Quality of a splice
• (Size of path upset, time to settle)
Slippage on misaligned roller
• (path change during tension upset)

5. Roisum, David R. Web Path Movement and the

FIGURE 6. Control architecture Witness Line. YouTube, Web201.20d.

Dr. David R. Roisum,

The path principal of Finishing
There are a lot of moving pieces to make a path-control system perform Technologies, Inc. (Neenah,
as good as it can. It starts with understanding the application and what WI), is a well-known
it needs for position accuracy, correction distance and correction rate. authority in the field of web-
Then, we define the source of the path upsets and try to minimize them. handling and converting.
Finally, after doing all that, you may wish to add a guide. That part He worked for Beloit Corp.
should be the easiest because we’ve studied best practices for a half as a designer of winding
century, and there are hundreds of documents telling us what those best machinery and later as a research manager,
practices are. n and for Kimberly-Clark as a converting
expert. David has accumulated much practical
References experience working in 1,000+ plants over the
1. Shelton, John J. Lateral Dynamics of a Moving Web. Ph.D. thesis, course of nearly four decades. He also writes
Oklahoma State University, 1968. the “Web Wise” Q&A technical column and
2. Roisum, Walker and Jones. The Web Handling Handbook. Chapter 8,
moderates the Web Handling & Converting
Destech Publishing, 2020.
3. Roisum, David R. Insular Industries. YouTube, Web201.73b and c. Technical Topics Channel for this publication.
4. Roisum, David R. DFM – Distances Between Key Processes. YouTube, David can be reached at 920-312-8466, email:
Web201.48c. [email protected], www.roisum.com.

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