The present application is a national phase entry under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application No. PCT/SE2015/050230 filed Feb. 27, 2015, published in English, which claims priority from Swedish Application No. 1450243-9 filed Mar. 5, 2014, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to fiber refiners in general, and specifically to promoting equalization of fiber flow in such refiners.
Refiners used for manufacturing mechanical pulp typically comprise one or more refiner elements positioned oppositely and rotating relative to each other. The fixed i.e. stationary refiner element is called the stator of the refiner, and the rotating or rotatable refiner element is called the rotor of the refiner. In disc refiners, the refiner elements are disc-like and in cone refiners the refiner elements are conical. In addition to disc refiners and cone refiners, there are also what are called disc-cone refiners where disc-like refiner elements come first in the flow direction of the material to be defibrated and after them the material to be defibrated is refined further between conical refiner elements. Furthermore, there are also cylindrical refiners where both the stator and the rotor of the refiner are cylindrical refiner elements.
The refining surfaces of the refiner elements are formed by bars, i.e. bars and blade grooves i.e. grooves between the bars. The task of the bars is to defibrate the lignocellulosic material and the task of the grooves is to transport both material to be defibrated and material already defibrated on the refining surface. In disc refiners, which represent the most common refiner type, the material to be refined is usually fed through an opening in the middle of the stator i.e. on the inner periphery of the refining surface of the stator, to the space between the refiner surfaces of the discs i.e. to a blade gap. The refined material is discharged from the blade gap, from the outer periphery of the refining surfaces of the refiner discs, to be fed onwards in the pulp manufacturing process. The refining surfaces of the refiner discs may be either surfaces formed directly on the refiner discs, or they may be formed as separate blade segments positioned adjacent to each other in such a way that each blade segment forms part of a continuous refining surface. The same is true for cone refiners as well.
Usually, dams connecting two adjacent bars to each other are positioned at the bottom of the blade grooves of the refining surfaces of both the stator and the rotor of the refiner. The task of the dams is to guide the material to be refined and material already refined to the space between the bars of opposite refining surfaces to be further refined. Since the dams guide the material to be refined to the space between opposite blade bars, refining the material can be promoted thanks to the dams. Simultaneously, however, the dams cause the steam flow taking the material to be refined onwards in the blade grooves to decrease and prevent passage of the material to be refined and the material already refined on the refining surface by restricting the cross-sectional flow area of the blade grooves. This in turn leads to blockage on the refining surface, which then results in a decrease in the production capacity of the refiner, non-uniformity of the quality of the refined material and an increase in the energy consumed for the refining.
WO 2010/106225 A1 describes a refining surface that does not use dams for guiding the material into the blade gap between the opposite refining surfaces. The refining surface comprises first and second blade bars with blade grooves between them, as well as third blade bars located in the blade grooves between the first and second blade bars. The third blade bars have sloping ends that ascend from the bottom of the blade grooves up to the upper surfaces of the blade bars. The sloping ends are located at the end of the blade bars closest to the feed edge of the refining surface and thus form rising guide surfaces for guiding the material from the blade grooves between the blade bars to the upper surfaces of the blade bars and into the blade gap.
In any continuous process, minimizing variations is crucial for maximizing quality, minimizing costs and getting a stable process. This is also true for any pulp refining process in which fiber (wood or other lignocellulosic material.) is refined between refiner segments. The term lignocellulose refers to plant dry matter or so called lignocellulosic biomass. It is composed of carbohydrate polymers (e.g. cellulose, hemicellulose), and an aromatic polymer (lignin). These carbohydrate polymers contain different sugar monomers (six and five carbon sugars) and they are tightly bound to lignin. Lignocellulosic biomass can be broadly classified into virgin biomass, waste biomass and energy crops. Virgin biomass includes all naturally occurring terrestrial plants such as trees, bushes and grass. Waste biomass is produced as a low value byproduct of various industrial sectors such as agricultural (corn stover, sugarcane bagasse, straw etc), forestry (saw mill and paper mill discards). Energy crops are crops with high yield of lignocellulosic biomass produced to serve as a raw material for production of second generation biofuel examples include switch grass (Panicum virgatum) and Elephant grass.
Within pulp refining, variations in feed within the refining gap between the stator and rotor segments causes an increase in energy needed to maintain a predetermined or desired pulp quality and causes variations in end fiber quality. Therefore, there is a need for improving the design of the blade segments in order to overcome the above mentioned disadvantages.
The present invention relates to pulp refining in general, and specifically to minimizing feed variations in pulp refiners.
In a first aspect, the present disclosure presents a blade segment for a refiner intended for defibrating lignocellulose-containing material, which blade segment has a refining surface and is arrangeable to form a part of a refining surface of the refiner. The blade segment has a feed edge directed in the direction of the feed flow of a material to be refined and a discharge edge directed in the direction of the discharge flow of the refined material, and the refining surface of the blade segment. Further, the refiner segment includes a group of at least two first blade bars and at least three second blade bars, each at least first and each of the at least three second blade bars has a first end directed in the direction of the feed edge and a second end directed in the direction of the discharge edge. In addition, the at least two first blade bars and the at least three second blade bars are arranged in an interlaced manner such that the second ends of the first blade bars are interlaced with the first ends of the second blade bars to form first valleys between said first blade bars corresponding to the width of the second blade bars, and to form second valleys between said second blade bars corresponding to the width of the first blade bars. Also, the second end of the at least two first blade bars has a respective guiding surface descending from an upper surface of the at least one first blade bar in the direction of the discharge edge to the second end, and the first end of the at least three second blade bars has a respective guiding surface ascending from the direction of the feed edge to an upper surface of said blade bar towards the second end. Finally, the second ends of the first blade bars and the first ends of the second blade bars are arranged to form an equalization groove substantially across and perpendicular to the first and second blade bars, wherein the equalization groove is configured to buffer and distribute a flow of material from a first valley between the at least two first blade bars into one or more second valleys formed between the at least three second blade bars.
Advantages of the present disclosure enable equalization of the flow of material over a refiner segment.
The invention, together with further objects and advantages thereof, may best be understood by referring to the following description taken together with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The present disclosure relates to refiners in general, and specifically to an improved refiner segment bar design in which an equalization groove is manufactured across the bars in the segment, whereby the flow of material in the grooves between the bars is equalized.
In order to further the understanding of the benefits of the present disclosure, an in depth description of the disadvantages of current prior art will follow below.
In most refiner arrangements, feed variations occur across the refiner geometry. These vary over time, over the refiner geometry (over the ring). In order to avoid shives in the less fiber populated zones, the gap between the stator and rotor segments is typically adjusted inwards e.g. reduced, which causes higher energy consumption and production of fines (dust) in the more fiber populated zones. This causes higher energy consumption and reduced fiber quality. Shives comprises small bundles of incompletely cooked wood fibers in the chemical pulp used in papermaking. They are smaller than knots and are more difficult to separate from the pulp. An excess of shives is a sign of poor impregnation of the wood chips. Shives are separated from the pulp in the screening and can be added back after refining. Even though shives are darker than rest of the pulp, they may pass unnoticed to the paper machine because they are easily bleached. Shives in the paper machine can cause web breakage or other operational problems. They might also end as spots in the finished product.
In the graphs of
In
For further clarification and illustration a schematic refiner segment is illustrated in
Accordingly, the inventors have identified the need for a solution that enables distributing the flow of the pulp across the refiner gap/zone to more efficiently utilize all the bars of the segments 1. Therefore a fiber flow equalization unit is provided on the segments 1, which distributes the flow evenly over each following groove and over time. According to a particular embodiment, the equalizer comprises an equalization groove 40 which allows the flow to choose a following groove that is not full with fibers without losing too much speed. In the equalization groove 40 the open volume initially decreases and subsequently suddenly increases which provides a buffer and then an explosion which helps to equalize the flow over time. The term explosion refers to the combination of fiber and steam (in essence all the material between opposing segments) that explodes due to the pressure and volume change. Part of the fiber can be defibrated by this explosion but the greater effect is the distribution of the fiber into a subsequent groove is homogenized.
The equalization groove 40 according to the present disclosure is provided across the substantially radially arranged grooves and bars. In essence, the equalizer comprises two features, namely a flow reducing section and a reservoir and distribution section. The flow reducing section comprises grooves that are designed to be more narrow, or fewer than the majority of the provided refiner grooves on the segment. Thereby creating a flow differential across the refiner surface. The reservoir and distribution section comprises the equalization groove, which enables stemming the flow of pulp and distributing the flow evenly across the available refiner grooves. This is a form of water filling principle, where the reservoir distributes the flow to the grooves that have less fiber than neighboring grooves.
According to a particular embodiment, the equalization groove 40 is a single groove per segment, but it is equally possible to design the groove as a series of grooves arranged across the segment. However, typically there is no benefit in providing more than one equalization groove when the fiber is moving from an inlet e.g. inlet zone 2 towards an outlet edge e.g. refining zone 3 of the segment 1.
With reference to
The at least two first bars 10 and the at least three second 20 bars are arranged in an interlaced manner in which the second ends 10-2 of the first bars 10 are interlaced with the first ends 20-1 of the second bars 20-1 to form first grooves 30-1 between the first bars 10 corresponding to at least the width of the second bars 20, and to form second grooves 30-2 between the second bars 20 corresponding to at least the width of the first bars 10. The second end 10-2 of the at least two first bars 10 has a respective guiding surface R1 or chamfer decreasing from an upper surface of the at least one first bar in the direction of the refining zone 3 to the second end 10-2. In a corresponding manner, the first end 20-1 of the at least three second bars 20 has a respective guiding surface R2 or chamfer increasing from the direction of the inlet zone 2 to an upper surface of the bar 20 towards the second end 20-2. In this embodiment the second ends 10-2 of the first bars 10 and the first ends 20-1 of the second bars 20 are arranged to form an equalization groove 40 substantially across and perpendicular to the first and second bars 10, 20, such that the equalization groove 40 is configured to buffer and distribute a flow of material from at least one of the first grooves 30-1 between the at least two first bars 10 into one or more of the second grooves 30-2 formed between the at least three second bars 20.
In the embodiment in
According to a particular embodiment, with reference to
It should be noted that the first ends 10-1 of the first bars 10 and the second ends 20-2 of the second bars 2 can be configured in accordance with the disclosed illustrations e.g.
According to a particular embodiment the respective guiding surfaces R1 and R2 have the same inclination, but it is equally possible to have differing inclinations.
In a corresponding manner the height and width of the first and second bars 10, 20 can differ, thereby affecting the shape of the equalization groove 40.
For the embodiment illustrated in
With reference to
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As described previously, and now with reference to
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The embodiments described above are merely given as examples, and it should be understood that the proposed technology is not limited thereto. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications, combinations and changes may be made to the embodiments without departing from the present scope as defined by the appended claims. In particular, different part solutions in the different embodiments can be combined in other configurations, where technically possible.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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1450243 | Mar 2014 | SE | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/SE2015/050230 | 2/27/2015 | WO | 00 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
WO2015/133962 | 9/11/2015 | WO | A |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20170073894 A1 | Mar 2017 | US |