GB848970A - Improvements relating to the formation of sliver - Google Patents

Abstract

848,970. Making slivers from heat-softenable mineral materials. OWENS-CORNING FIBERGLAS CORPORATION. July 22, 1958 [July 25, 1957], No. 23564/58. Class 120(3). Staple sliver is made from heat-softenable mineral or other material, e.g. glass or thermoplastic resins by softening the material, forming filaments from it, attenuating and converting them to fibres by a gaseous blast, and rotating the product as it passes to a compactor to fold in protruding fibres and smooth it to form a sliver of substantially uniform section. In fig. 1, molten glass is ejected as filaments through apertures in a rotor 12 and is subjected through an annular outlet 34 to a blast of hot gas from the combustion of air and fuel gas in a burner 28. Alternatively, the blast may be of air or steam. The fibres so formed now converge to form a bundle in a rotatable conical hood 45 from which the gases are withdrawn through apertures 49, the process also assisting the deposition of the fibres. The fibres now pass to a rotary compactor 38 before being wound up as sliver at 42. The compactor is made to rotate by compressed air &c. impinging on vanes and it is just big enough to accommodate the sliver and fold in loose or projecting fibres. The rotor 12 comprises an internal wall shaped to direct the molten glass to apertures at three horizontal levels. In Fig. 6, the filaments are guided by a hood 95 to a series of spaced endless wires &c. moving over pulleys, on which the fibres collect as catenaries which are severed by rotating blades 120 between the wires so that the fibres are carried over a baffle 130 to compactors 381 as loops hanging over the wires. The gas is carried away through a vacuum chamber, the deposition of the fibres being assisted by the process, and waste fibres fall on to a collector 128. In another form, the hood 95 leads to a single conveyer band, and may pass through a twister as well as a compactor, while the fibres falling on to the collector are made into a mat. In a further form, an elongated orifice emits a blast of hot gas to soften rods or filaments and blow the resultant fibres on to an inclined arrangement of wires operating as in Fig. 6.