Nonwoven Production Buffer Storage for Continuous Fiber Feeding
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing nonwoven production methods are limited to processing fiber materials in web-shaped form, making it difficult to handle other forms of bonded fibers, and require continuous feeding of endless fiber material to maintain production continuity.
Innovation Solution
A method and device that break down starting fiber material into pre-shredded form using a pre-shredding device, allowing for buffer storage and continuous or non-continuous feeding to a mill, enabling the use of fiber materials in any initial shape, including non-web-shaped forms, and ensuring consistent fiber mass flow for uniform deposition.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If fiber material is fed continuously in web-shaped form to maintain production continuity, then production continuity is improved, but the ability to handle other forms of bonded fibers is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by introducing a buffer storage unit that receives and stores fiber material before it enters the mill. This buffer storage unit allows the system to accept fiber material in various forms (web-shaped, bales, blocks) and transform them into a continuous feed stream, thereby maintaining production continuity while increasing adaptability to different input forms.
Solution Approach 2:
The buffer storage unit acts as an intermediary between the fiber material supply and the mill. It receives fiber material in diverse forms from the supply, stores it, and then provides a consistent continuous feed to the mill, thus mediating between the variability of input forms and the requirement for continuous processing.
2Adaptability or versatility
If fiber material is fed non-continuously to allow flexibility in handling various forms, then adaptability is improved, but production continuity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The buffer storage unit performs preliminary storage of fiber material, allowing the system to accept non-continuous input in various forms while maintaining continuous output to the mill. This preliminary action enables flexibility in material handling without compromising production continuity.
Solution Approach 2:
The buffer storage unit ensures continuity of useful action by maintaining a continuous feed of fiber material to the mill regardless of the input form or timing. It decouples the continuous processing requirement from the variable input supply, allowing non-continuous feeding while maintaining continuous production.
3Device complexity
If fiber material is fed directly to the mill without buffer storage, then device complexity is reduced, but consistent fiber mass flow is difficult to maintain
Solution Approach 1:
The buffer storage unit serves as an intermediary that receives fiber material, stores it, and then provides a consistent continuous feed to the mill. This intermediary component ensures uniform fiber mass flow to the mill while adding minimal complexity to the overall system structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The buffer storage unit changes the temporal parameters of fiber material delivery by storing material during periods of excess supply and releasing it during periods of high demand, thereby standardizing the mass flow rate to the mill and improving manufacturing precision.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for the processing of fiber materials in various shapes and forms, maintaining continuous production by transforming non-continuous input into a continuous supply, ensuring consistent fiber deposition and reducing grammage fluctuations in the nonwoven product.
Implementation Method 1
the fibers formed thereby are conveyed in an air stream from the at least one mill to at least one laying screen
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a device and a method for producing a nonwoven product (1) from randomly arranged fibers (2), in particular cellulose fibers, in which a fiber material comprising fibers (2) in bonded form is fiberized in at least one mill (4) and the fibers (2) formed thereby are conveyed in an air stream from the at least one mill (4) to at least one depositing screen (5) and are deposited randomly on the at least one depositing screen (5), whereby the respective nonwoven product (1) is formed on the respective depositing screen (5), wherein a fiber material (3) is broken down in a pre-shredding device (6) into a pre-shredding fiber material (7) that can be conveyed in an air stream and the pre-shredding fiber material (7) is transferred to a buffer storage (8) to form a pre-shredding fiber material reserve (7a), wherein the fiber material reserve (7a) formed is supplied by at least one withdrawal device (9),Pre-shredded fiber material (7) is preferably extracted from several parallel extraction devices (9) and fed in the airflow (9) to at least one mill (4). The invention also relates to a nonwoven product produced in this way.