Wire Cleaning in Fiberglass Mat Manufacturing Processes

Wire Cleaning in Fiberglass Mat Manufacturing Processes

November 30

Claus Robberts; ProJet B.V. (Owner and President)

In a typical Fiberglass Mat Manufacturing process, there are three conveyor wires involved:

• Forming Wire
• Saturator wire
• Over / Dryer Wire

On the Forming Wire, the typical type of contamination that can be found after several hours or even days of production is (loose) glass fibers. These tend to deposit onto the wire and sometimes slightly entangle into the wire yarns.

In the Saturator Section, binder (UF modifiers, formaldehyde free binders, and glass mat coatings) is applied to the glass fibers, typically acrylic/latex. The binder is used to bond the loose fibers, but, obviously, some of the binder material bleeds through the fibers onto the Saturator Wire. Over time, the build up of binder on the Wire gets so much that it loses permeability which leads to an uneven distribution of binder in Cross Machine Direction.

The Oven Section ensures curing of the binder together with the fibers, making sure a stable and coherent mat is produced. The oven belts tend to build up fairly quickly with contamination, which is acrylic binder and fibers, during normal production. This contamination needs to be cleaned very efficiently to be able to maintain normal operation.

Clean conveyor wires, with consistently high air permeability, deliver important productivity and performance advantages for all sections. In the Forming and Saturator Section, clean wires ensure proper mat formation and binder distribution. A clean Oven Wire gives a substantial improvement in available oven curing capacity and will eliminate any sheet quality issues (marking of the mat by contamination particles).

Wire contamination and especially oven wire contamination is becoming an increasingly more important parameter in the production process. Given the enormous demand for building products around the world, runability and line speed of the production lines is extremely important.  ProJet is a company with over 25 years experience in designing and manufacturing innovative process wire belt cleaning systems. The ProJet system consumes very little water, compressed air, and electrical energy. This innovative cleaning system is being used successfully by Glass Mat Manufacturers around the globe. Each ProJet system is designed for its specific position in the production line, i.e. Forming, Saturator or Oven Wire application.