Density fibres

Rowell, R.M., Kawai, S. and Inoue, M. (1995). Dimensionally stabilized, very low density fibre-board. Wood and Fiber Science, 27(4), 428—436. 

Sanya Timber Factory is a large-scale timber processing enterprise that locates is Sanya, Hainan Island of China, In this factory there are two product lines imported from Sweden for 30,000m shaving plank and 40,000m mid-density fibre, and other workshops. About 100 tons wood waste is produced every day, which includes 35 tons wood powder, 10 tons leftover material, 10 tons sieving waste and 45 tons all kinds of bark. Due to the complicated sorts of timber waste, some of the wastes are used and others are disposed which causes severe problems of storage and pollution. 

Mohamed, A. R. (2010). Development and material properties of new hybrid medium density fibre board from empty fruit bunch and rubber wood, 31(9), 4229-4236. 

Adhesives of the aminoplastic (see Step polymerization) and phenol formaldehyde (see Phenolic adhesives single-stage resoles and Phenolic adhesives two-stage novolacs) types are most widely used. Although basically similar, an adhesive for plywood manufacture will require a different formulation to one for particle board, or medium-density fibre board (MDF) since methods of application and processing differ. Thus, in plywood, large sheets of veneer must be uniformly coated with adhesive, usually by a roller or curtain coater in particle board, chips or wafers must be coated with very fine adhesive droplets, while small bundles of wet fibres must be sprayed with adhesive in the manufacture of MDF. Hence, formulation and production of resins has become a mixture of art and science, with resin manufacturers able to produce resins tailored for use in a particular board-manufacturing plant, or with a particular species of timber. 

We have developed different nonwoven stmctures with para-aramid fibres, and produced thick 3D stmctures by associating several nonwoven monolayers with a consolidation treatment. Porous composites were afterwards manufactured by impregnating the fibrous stmctures with an epoxy resin. Both dry and impregnated materials were characterized in terms of stmcture (density, fibre volume fraction), and compression tests were used to evaluate mechanical properties. Equivalent pore size and distance between fibre contacts were determined using theoretical models. They help to provide some insight on the mechanical behaviour of the different stmctures. 

Technical lamination in automotive and furniture industry is used to bond decorative films onto preformed hard substrates, for example, printed PVC films on dashboards or medium density fibre boards. Mainly adhesives based on polyurethane dispersions are used, which provide excellent adhesion and extremely high bond strength. 

The problems of monomer recovery, reaction medium viscosity, and control of reaction heat are effectively dealt with by the process design of Montedison Fibre (53). This process produces polymer of exceptionally high density, so although the polymer is stiU swollen with monomer, the medium viscosity remains low because the amount of monomer absorbed in the porous areas of the polymer particles is greatly reduced. The process is carried out in a CSTR with a residence time, such that the product k jd x. Q is greater than or equal to 1. is the initiator decomposition rate constant. This condition controls the autocatalytic nature of the reaction because the catalyst and residence time combination assures that the catalyst is almost totally expended in the reactor. 

Composites need not be made of fibres. Plywood is a lamellar composite, giving a material with uniform properties in the plane of the sheet (unlike the wood from which it is made). Sheets of GFRP or of CFRP are laminated together, for the same reason. And sandwich panels - composites made of stiff skins with a low-density core - achieve special properties by combining, in a sheet, the best features of two very different components. 

The properties of a foam are determined by the properties of the polymer, and by the relative density, p/p - the density of the foam (p) divided by that of the solid (p ) of which it is made. This plays the role of the volume fraction Vf of fibres in a composite, and all the equations for foam properties contain p/p. It can vary widely, from 0.5 for a dense foam to 0.005 for a particularly light one. 

Fig. 26.2. The microstructure of wood. Woods ore foams of relative densities between 0.07 and 0.5, with cell walls which ore fibre-reinforced. The properties ore very anisotropic, partly because of the cell shape and partly because the cell-wall fibres ore aligned near the axial direction.

Wood, then, is a foamed fibrous composite. Both the foam cells and the cellulose fibres in the cell wall are aligned predominantly along the grain of the wood (i.e. parallel to the axis of the trunk). Not surprisingly, wood is mechanically very anisotropic the properties along the grain are quite different from those across it. But if all woods are made of the same stuff, why do the properties range so widely from one sort of wood to another The differences between woods are primarily due to the differences in their relative densities (see Table 26.1). This we now examine more closely. 

Plastics also find increasing use in vehicles for both water and air transport. Glass-fibre-reinforced plastic boats are widely used as a result of their economy in manufacture, ease of maintenance, lightness of weight and, for military purposes, antimagnetic characteristics. The non-corrosive nature of plastics also leads to their widespread use in boat fixtures and fittings. In aircraft, plastics are particularly useful on account of their low density. 

Leaving aside rayon and artificial silks generally, the first really effective polymeric textile fibre was nylon, discovered by the chemist Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937) in the Du Pont research laboratories in America in 1935, and first put into production in 1940, just in time to make parachutes for the wartime forces. This was the first of several major commodity polymer fibres and, together with high-density polyethylene introduced about the same time and Terylene , polyethylene tereph-thalate, introduced in 1941 (the American version is Dacron), transformed the place of polymers in the materials pantheon. 

Typical applications for nylon include small gears, bearings, bushes, sprockets, housings for power tools, terminal blocks and slide rollers. An important design consideration is that nylon absorbs moisture which can affect its properties and dimensional stability. Glass reinforcement reduces this problem and produces an extremely strong, impact resistant material. Another major application of nylon is in fibres which are notoriously strong. The density of nylon is about 1100 kg/m. ... 

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