US1500208A - Process of and apparatus for making fiber boards - Google Patents

Description

July s 1924. y

J. K. SHAW ROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING FIBER BOARDS 1-920 2 Sheets-Sheet l Original Filed April 6 July l8 19,24.

J. K. SHAW PROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING FIBER BOARDS- Original Filed April 6 1920 2 ASheets-Shed 2 Jam/KS @y named July s, 1924.

TOEN I. BHAW, 0F MINNEAPOLIS., MINNSOTA,

ASSIIGNOB TO C. F. lDAIIIIBEIB'G', 0l'

ser. PAUL, mmmsora.

0I' AND APPARATUS FOR KJAKING FIBER BOARDS.

Application med. April 8, 1920, Serial No. 371,568. Renewed January 9, 1928.

To allv whom' t may ocmo'm: Be it known that I, JOHN K. SHAW, a citizen of the United States, residing at Minnea olis, in the county of Hennepin and State o Minnesota, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes of and Apparatus for Making Fiber Boards; and- I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enableothers skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to a process of and an apparatus for interlacin fibers preparatory to making fiber boar s, and has for its object to provide a method and a means which will be more eicient in action and less expensive to operate than those heretofore proposed.

With these and other objects in View the invention consists in the novel steps and combinations of steps constituting thev process and in the novel parts and combinations of parts constituting the apparatus, allas will be more fully hereinafter disclosed and particularly pointed out in the claims.

This'ap lication is an improvement over my copening application, Serial Number 368,990 filed Mar. 26, 1920, and entitledy Process of and apparatus for making fiber boards.-

Referring'to the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specication in which4 like numerals designate like parts inv all the viewsz-f j Figure 1 is a diagrammatic sectional view of an apparatus made in accordance with this invention;

Figure 2 is a view showing the normal positions of the wires in the belt before stretching; j

Figure 3 is a view showing the eiect of stretching on the wires;

Figlure 4 is'a diagrammatic view illustrat- 'in t e dis osition of the individual fibers be ore reac ing the traveling surface;

Figure 5 is a view similar to Fi ure 4 illustrating the action of. the trave ing vsurface upon the individual fibers; and

Figure 6 is a diagrammatic sectional view of a berboard made in accordance with this invention.

Referring to Figure 1, 1 indicates any suitable tank for holding the water and iibers, 2the bottom of said tank, 3 an in- Between the runs 12 and 13 is located the water outlet 15, provided with the controlling -means or gate 16 which may be suitably mani ulated ask by the handle or other device 17. j

Coacting with theforaminous surface or belt 11, and in close roximity thereto as regards one portion tli) ereof, is the foraminous belt 18, passing over and around the series of guide rolls 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24. Said belt 18 also passes overthe compression and .guide `roll 25 coacting with the compression roll 6,' and adjustably mounted on the movable means 26. 27represents a tension and guide roll, adjustably mounted on the'4 means 28, and 29, an outlet for the water passing through the belt 18, controlled by the gate 30 and adjustable through the handle 31. 32 and 33 represent suitable Water seals made of flexible material for the belts 11 and 18 respectively.

35 represents a channel or passage for water and fibers which may be maintained at any desired hydrostatic head 36, 37 an opening from the channel 35 into the tank space 38, and 39 a top or partition separating said space 38 from the remainder of the tank. 40 represents a second. channel for water and pu'lp fibers, 41 the head. thereof, 42 an opening from said channel into the tank space 43, and 44 a partition which with the partition 39 serves to separate said space43from the rest ofthe tank, 45 represents athird channel'vfor water and fibers having a head 46, 47 an opening into the tank space 48, and 49 a partition coactin with the partition 44 to segregate sai space 48 from the remainder of the tank.

In machines'of this character'it is necessary to have the aggregate area of the meshes of the travelin surface. sufficiently vlarge to carry away t e waste water fast enough to properly interlace the bers. But 1f the mesh is ne enough to properly stop the stock, the screen must be very long to furnish the required a gregate mesh area.

would be about 57 feet long. But when this great length of screen is employed with such a ne wire mesh, the strain on the screen is almostl sureto so pull the strands, as to cause the mesh to change from the pat-v tern Ashown in Figure 2 to that shown in Figure 3. This pulling action so changes the pattern on the paper or other material produced, that the resulting product is damaged. On the'other hand, when the screen is shortened to about say 17 feet or somewhat longer in order to avoid this change of pattern, the mesh of a wire cloth must be so increased that the stock is apt to pass through the screen too fast if we are to get rid of the water with the desired speed for a good interlacing of the bers.

To avoid these objections, in carrying out this invention, I provide the screen 11 of a relatively large mesh, say about 14 to the square inch, and n'd .that its wire strands are sufficiently -strong to prevent any objectionable pulling when said screen is made very much shorter than 57 feet, but, of course, meshes of this size do not sto the stock and interlace them as efficient y as could be desired.`v Accordingly, I locate inside said screen 11, a relatively short endless screen 100, which has a mesh of about 20 to the square inch, and which convenient-ly passes around the rollers or drums 4 an 101 as illustrated. l j

It will be understood that this invention may only flow water vthrough screen v11, the o ning 29, in that case bein cut o' by t e gate 30, and when such is tie case, only I one endless belt 100 will be required. On

the other hand, water may be flowed si.

multaneously through the screens .11 and 18, and in such latter case the screen 181may in some cases -be sufficiently short to cnable one to use a 20 mesh wire cloth. s In such cases, again only one screen 100 will be necessary. But, other cases ma arise las in which I will need a 14 mesh c oth in screen 18, and in that event I provide a secondv wire cloth screen 103 of 2O mesh which conveniently passes around the rollers 22 and 24. In either or both cases, said screens 100 and 103 of a relatively fine mesh, serve -to stop the bers passing the screens 11 or18, and thereby cause more or less bers to stop or interlace on the coarser meshes of saidvscreens 1'1. or 18; These said last mentioned bers soon pass beyond the course bers ofv an .usual ngth may be bers but. of

employed. Said ersby reason of the direction of flow of the water through the belt 11, or surface 13will bebrought into positions more or less parallel to each other,

and more or less perpendicular to the lline of travel of- Vthe surface 13, while at the same time all of said bers will occupy positions more or less staggered with relation to their v neighbors as shown. Accordingly, a large percentage of the forward ends 61 ofthe rst portions of said bers will rst pass through said surface 13, as indicated in Figure 4, but will be stopped, and carried along by the belt 100 from the positions shown in Figure 4 to those shown in Figure 5, wherein the -rear ends 62 of said bers are illus' trated as having lagged behind the front.

ends 61, in the water, so that the front row of said bers have assumed a somewhat curved or bent shape. Owing to the'stoppage of the bers by the belt 100, the second row, or those bers 63 immediately following, and which have notv reached the surface 13, but have reached the rear ends 62 of the bers 60, are now forced by the oncomin water to contact at their forward en s against the curved bers 60. This action 4, were more or less staggered or interlaced with the other bers 60, before the latter became curved; and it is evident lthat this f interlacing or entangling action between the bers 60 and 63 will be enhanced or increased, Vby the oncoming water after the surface 13 becomes covered with berein the manner just stated, Land after-l said curvature takes place. It results vfrom the actions, just described that said bers 63 in chamber 43,

become themselves more or less curved, as indicated in .'Figure 5, due to the transverse movement of the bers 60, and that a third to t e oating of the bers into parallel,

"interlaced or staggered positions, and in a through the opening direction transverse to the traveling surface 13, the entanglement of the bers is continuous between successive rows, even though the meshes of said surface 13 are suiciently large to permit me tense` a relatively short belt 11, and even though the pressure of the water causes the whole mass to' be ve loosely assembled -in their interlaced posltions on said surface 13. The open mass of bers thus formed is more compact next to the wire than away from it, and said mass is carried throughthe opening into the tivel 'short or more'expensive bers than are t ose fed to the channel 40, and I may feed to the channel 45, the same class of bers as are fed to the channel 35, or'I may feed a totally different class of bers. In

-other words, IY may rovide as many channels 35, 40 and 45, as t ere are different characters of bers in the nished board, and I may place in the rstv channel 35 and in the. last channel 45 anyv character of bers I desire whereupon the nished. board will be rovi ed withpan outer layer 77 correspondin'g to the lbers that are fed to the channel 35, with another outer layer 78 corresponding to lthe bers that are fed tothe channel space 43, with `one or more partially curved* 45, and with one or more intermediate layers and partially entangled layers similar to the bers 60 and 63 clinging to it. v l

As stated above, in said space 43, other berssimilar to the bers 64 become interlaced and entangled with thelayers on the belt; and the process of entanglement and massing proceeds as before; but in the mean time, owm to the presence of the belt 103, layers of ers in all respects similar to the layers 60, 63 and 64 are interlaced, entangled and massed on the travelin 'belt 18 from the surface 48, if the gate 30 oes not close the opening 29. This second mass of bers is carried through the o ning 71-by the belt 18 in a conditionsimilar to the rst mentioned mass that passes the openingY 70, and the bers in the 's ace 43' interlace, and be-` come entangled withsaid second mass in a manner similar to that described in connection with said rst mentioned ma'ss' on the surface 13. The'resnlt is, owin to the` resence of the belts 100-,fand 103 ol a relatively ner mesh, and to the parallel and staggered relations of the bers'in-the space 43, a third mass of bers are interlaced and entangled witheach other 011A the belts 13 and 18, which have relatively short lengths and coarse meshes as comparedv to similar belts heretofore used. Of course, said third massv As a result of `the .foregoing entangle ments of the various bers and the motion of the surfaces 100 and 103 of 13 and 18,- the entire interlaced mass of bers is carried between the comression or comgactmgrolls and 25,'and 1s formed into t will be readily understood.

An important feature of this invention e sheet orv board 76,.all as 79 corres nding to the character ofthe bers Whlch are fed to the channel 40 and #to any other channels which may be located Aintermediate of the channels 35 and 45.

sized in this invention isthe fact that no matter how many kinds of bers or how man layers of bers that are present in the nislvied board, the bers of each layer will be interlaced or entangled with the bers of its adjacent layer on elts of wire cloth 11 and 18 which are much shorter than those now in use for the same output of product,

mly interwoven But the important feature to be emphal to produce with a comparatively inexpen-v sive machine, a ber boardor sheet having comparatively inexpensivesbers on its interior and comparatlvelyfgex nsive bers on its exterior, so that a y'ornamental .Q appearance can be imparted wtoand retained pense.

Sular character of bers, for my invention is 011 the nished product atfa'minimum offer- I do not"v\z;isl1l to be to any particapplicable -to bers in general. Itl is only` necessary to oat the bers on theiwater to get them' into parallel and staggered positions as indicated in Figure 3, 'and to thenv gure 4.

4entangle them as is illustrated in Fi The process is facilitated `bythe factV that -the openings 37, 42 and 47 are of a less areav than are the spaces 38, 43 and 48, into which [the bers are ed. Imother words, the bers .a must pass through the opening in -a comresides not only in bein able'to thus inter-1 paratively CIOSe ,relation t0 eachother, land lace, or entangle, the rs i`n the body of the sheet with relatively short belts 11 and 18 having relatively coarse meshes, but also in'being able to. -vary the kind, size, or class,

of bers in different portions of the sheet.

That is to say, I'may feed to the channel 35, one 'kind ofV bers, which-mayv be relathe - along vwith .the water .While andassuming the 'cated in Figure 4.

,.I further. prefer to permit avery -lar I H I proportion ofvthewater, say-d 90% of e are thenrim'mediately releasedinto a to the results sought in the nished boar The rolls 6 and- 25 are readily adjusted by vthe means illustrated to roduce any desired compression in theopemng between said rolls, so that the ber' board ma be given any desired degree of porosity. n fact, by uslng relatively large bers 1n the channel 40, and relatively ne bers in the channels 35 and 45, I am'enabled to control the air spaces in the bod of the board, and thereby to controlits eat-insulating qualities.

' The heads 36, 41 and 46, of the liquid in the channels 35, 40 and 45 are so maintained that there will be a minimum tendency of liquid to ow between the spaces or chambers 38, 43 and '48. In other words, the pressures of the liquid in the last mentioned spaces are maintained as nearly equal as possible, and thus a minimum tendency of the bers to fail to interlace is secured.

It is obvious that those skilled in the art ma var the details of .the construction as as t e details of the process without departing from the spirit of the invention, and therefore I do not wish to be limited to the above disclosure except as may be required b the claims.

What claim isz- 1. The process of interlacing bers on an endless revolving screen havin meshes too large. to etliciently stop said consists in causing said bers to assume more or less parallel ositions in a direction transverse to the pat of movement of said screen; causing some'of said bers to be interlaced and massed at each revolution of said screen,

on a portion only of the latter; and then interlaced mass of bers causing the movin Iace with other bers to to stop and inter form the desired product, substantially as described.

verse to the pa co 4 endless revolving screen havin v"thealicausing the moving interlaced mass ofA bers, which v x bers to stop and interlace with other bers to form the desired product, substantially as described.

3. In a machine for making a ber board of interlaced bers, the combination of a pluralit of movable foraminous surfaces; a relative y short foraminous surface of a ner mesh positioned inside one of said rst.

named surfaces; a plurality of separated channels for floating di'erent kinds of bers to said surfaces; and causing said different kinds of bers to interlace with each other; and means vfor compacting the interlaced bers vsubstantially as described.

4. ln a machine for making a ber board the combination of a plurality of movable foraminous surfaces; a relatively short foraminous surface of a ner mesh positioned inside one of said first named surfaces; a plurality of separated channels for conveying liquid and di'erfent kinds of bers separately to said surfaces; and means for maintaining substantially the same hydrostatic pressure in each channel, substantially as described.

5. In a machine for making a ber board of layers of interlaced bers, the combination of a plurality of movable foraminous surfaces; a relatively short foraminous surface of a ner mesh positioned inside one of said first named surfaces; chambers in which said surfaces are located; and restricted channels communicating with said chambers, substantially as described.

6. In a machine for making a ber board of layers of interlaced bers, the combina- 'tion of a plurality of movable foraminous surfaces;'a relatively short foraminous surface of a ner mesh ositioned inside one of said rst named sur aces; chambers extending in directions transverse to, and in which sald surfaces are located; and restricted channels having openin communicating with said chambers, su stantially as described.

' 7. In a machine for making a ber board, the combination of an endless belt foraminous surface; a second endless belt foraminous surface; a relatively short foraminous surface of a ner mesh positioned inside one of said rst named surfaces; chambers adapted to float bers to said surfaces;

means to prevent 'the bers in one chamber from mixing with the bers in the adjoiningl chamber; means for feeding bers to sald chambers; and means causing said surfaces to compact the mass of bers fed thereto, substantially as described.

8. In a machine for making a ber board the combination of a channel for feeding bers; a chamber communicating with said channel for floating a set of bers andcausing them to assume parallel positions; a second channel-and a second chamber for floating a *second set of bers; a foraminous surface ada ted to move across said chambers; and a oraminous surface having a rel-g atively ne mesh extending alon a portion of the length of and inside said t named foraminous surface, substantially as described.

9. In amachine for making a ber board the combination of a pair of foraminous surfaces; a relatively short foraminous surfacel of a finer lmesh positioned inside one of said first named surfaces; vmeans .for moving said surfaces; means for adjusti said surfaces relativel to each other; aii means for feeding a iferent kind of ber to each of said surfaces, substantially as described.

10. In a machine for making a ber board the combination of a pair ,of endless belt foraminous surfaces; means for movin said surfaces; means for adjusting sai surfaces relatively to each other; means for, regulating the amount of water owing through each surface; means forfeeding a different kind of ber to each of said surfaces; and a forarninousv surface of a relalacing fibrous material on a traveling.

foraminous 4surface having openings too largecto eiciently stop said material. which consists in causing the bers of said material -to assume more or less parallel positions in a direction transverse to the line of travel of said surface; and also causing said brous material to be retained and massed on said surface by a means independent of said sur-k face, substantially-as described.

In testimony whereof I aix my signa- JOHN K. SHAW.

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