One of the important processes in operation of a printing machine is the transfer of a sheet of printed material from one cylinder to another. The transfer of the sheet is carried out using special grippers attached to the printing cylinder, and quality of printing depends on their accuracy. At the stage of printing process preparation, an important step in setting up the equipment is the correct installation of the grippers. The paper presents the results of developing a geometric model of the sheet transfer process from grippers to grippers. This process is visualized using a computer simulation. The presented model makes it possible to define the trajectory of the paper movement in the transfer zone, and track the untimely opening or closing of grippers. This may lead to printing process abnormality.

Various loads have a significant effect on the operation of different equipment components. Modern national and international studies show high efficiency of applying finite element methods to research into the loading nature of various parts and systems as a whole. Unevenly distributed loads can reduce the performance of the equipment, as well as lead to the failure of components. This paper examines the effect of the position of the substrate gripper system on the deformations in the printing cylinder. The findings prove that the misalignment of the shaft and gripper bridge placement doubles the resulting deformations.