Modern Paper Quality Control

On the other hand, the fiber orientation at the surface and middle layer of the sheet controls the bending stiffness of paperboard. Therefore, a reliable measurement of paper surface fiber orientation gives us a magnificent tool to investigate and predict paper curling and cockling tendency, and provides the necessary information to fine-tune the manufacturing process for optimum quality. Many papers, especially heavily calendered and coated grades, do resist liquid and gas penetration very much, being beyond the measurement range of the traditional instruments or resulting inconveniently long measuring time per sample. The increased surface hardness and use of filler minerals and mechanical pulp make a reliable, non-leaking sample contact to the measurement head a challenge of its own. Paper surface coating causes, as expected, a layer which has completely different permeability characteristics compared to the other layers of the sheet. The latest developments in sensor technologies have made it possible to reliably measure gas flow n well controlled conditions, allowing us to investigate the gas penetration of open structures, such as cigarette paper, tissue or sack paper, and in the low permeability range analyze even fully greaseproof papers, silicon papers, heavily coated papers and boards or even detect defects in barrier coatings! Even nitrogen or helium may be used as the gas, giving us completely new possibilities to rank the products or to find correlation to critical process or converting parameters. All the modern paper machines include many on-line measuring instruments which are used to give the necessary information for automatic process control systems. Hence, the reliability of this information obtained from different sensors is vital for good optimizing and process stability. If any of these on-line sensors do not operate perfectly as planned (having even small measurement error or malfunction), the process control will set the machine to operate away from the optimum, resulting loss of profit or eventual problems in quality or runnability. To assure optimum operation of the paper machines, a novel quality assurance policy for the on-line measurements has been developed, including control procedures utilizing traceable, accredited standards for the best reliability and performance.