New methods for evaluation of tissue creping and the importance of coating, paper and adhesion

Abstract: The creping process and the conditions on the Yankee cylinder dryer are key factors in a tissue paper mill, and they therefore need to be kept under good control in order to maintain a high and uniform quality. To this end it would be valuable to be able to make on-line measurements of Yankee coating thickness as well as the crepe structure of the tissue paper. The adhesion of paper to the cylinder affects the creping process and more information about the parameters that affect the adhesion is therefore of interest. To perform trials on a full scale or in a pilot plant is very costly and laboratory creping equipment is therefore sought after in order to be able to measure the adhesion force.The coating layer for use on the cylinder was analysed. It contained a large amount of carbohydrates and could not be considered transparent. The thickness of the coating layer was measured on a laboratory cylinder with a method based on fluorescence. An optical brightener was added to the coating chemicals and the coating layer was subjected to UV-radiation. The intensity of the light emitted by the optical brightener was measured and gave an indication of the thickness of the coating layer. The equipment has to be further investigated before it is possible to implement the new sensor on-line.New creping equipment and an adhesion method were developed for use on a laboratory scale. The equipment can operate with different creping angles and the force needed to crepe the paper can be measured. The highest creping force was obtained for papers of high grammage, low dryness at adhesion, high drainability, high fines content and high hemicellulose content.A more direct method is to analyse the structure of the produced paper. Measurements were made on a tissue paper with an optical fibre sensor while the paper was travelling at low speed. The collected signal was mathematically analysed and the characteristic wavelength was calculated for different paper samples. These values were close to the wavelengths measured with an off line method by a commercial crepe analyser.