Optimization of the number of beating revolutions for centrifuged glassfiber wet-laid mat

ABSTRACT

Papermaking technique was applied to fabricate the centrifuged glassfiber mat (CGM). This paper discussed the influence of the number of beating revolutions on the morphology, drainability and absorbance of centrifuged glass wool (CGW) suspensions and the density and tensile strength of the resulting CGM. Beating had a great shortening effect on the fiber length and aspect ratio of glass fibers, but an inconspicuous effect on fiber diameter. The glass fibers in the suspensions beaten at 0r and 1500r were long and highly entangled, whereas those beaten at 3000r, 5000r and 8000r were slightly shortened and overlapped. The glass fibers beaten above 8000r were seriously damaged and uniformly distributed. The drainability of the suspensions under all the numbers of beating revolutions was excellent with a drainage resistance of lower than 16°SR and a drainage time of 8 s. Medium and heavy beating improved the uniformity of the suspensions, whereas heavy beating greatly lowered the tensile strength of the resulting CGM. In order to enhance the overall properties of the centrifuged glassfiber mat, the optimum number of beating revolutions was 3000r.

KEYWORDS:

• Centrifugal
• density
• fiber
• forming
• microstructure
• morphology
• optimization
• tensile

Acknowlgement

The authors thanks Mohsin Ali and Bipin Kumar for polishing the grammar of the whole paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Funding for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in NUAA (BCXJ13-10), Funding of Jiangsu Innovation Program for Graduate Education (the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, CXLX13_149), Major Achievements Transfer Projects of Jiangsu province (BA2013097), Jiangsu Project BA2013097, National Project 2015DFI53000, a Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, and Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Inorganic Function Composites. The first author thanks the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for providing a scholarship for Ph.D. study at the University of California at Davis.