UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA MECH 450D

PULP AND PAPER TECHNOLOGY

CALENDERING AND REELING


1 Introduction

After the dryer, paper passes through a calender stack and then is wound into a reel of
paper as shown in Figure 1. These two operations are linked and therefore will be
discussed together in this lecture.


Figure 1

Calendering, shown in Figure 2, is a unit operation which compresses the paper web
between one or more rolling nips. When carried out on a paper machine, it is called
machine calendering. Reeling is the subsequent operation of uniformly winding paper
into a jumbo roll at the end of the paper machine.

Calendering compresses paper to a uniform thickness and imparts smoothness to the
paper surface. The thickness uniformity is necessary to build a uniform reel, which
affects the runnability of paper in the press room. The smoothness affects paper
printability, that is, how well print and images can be reproduced on the paper surface.
Both runnability and printability are key quality factors for press rooms. Of these,
runnability is the more important. If paper cannot get through presses without breaking,
it is worthless to printers, particularly those running to tight deadlines such as
newspapers.


Figure 2


Figure 3
2 Calendering
2.1 Thickness Reduction and Smoothness

Typical machine calendering takes place in a vertical column of steel rolls resting on
one another, supported by a king roll at the bottom. The roll next up is the queen roll,
which is often the driven roll. The others run by friction from the driven roll.

The paper web is threaded down the stack, and thereby sees a series of nips of
increasing pressure. This compresses the web thickness as shown in Figure 3. The flat
rolls surface impose smoothness on the paper.

2.2 Major Variables

The major variables in calendering are moisture and temperature for paper, and the
number of rolls, roll diameter, and roll temperature for the calender stack. The relative
importance of these is shown in Figures 4 and 5. Figure 5 shows that while a target
thickness reduction can be obtained in a number of ways, high temperature calendering
gives slightly better smoothness, much better gloss, and a lower strength loss.

Figure 4
2.3 Nip Mechanics

The degree of paper compression in a nip is governed by the paper compressive
properties and the applied pressure and time. In a calender nip, the latter are not
known. The independent machine variables are line loading and speed. These, together
with paper deformation properties, determine nip pressure and dwell time, as shown in
Figure 6.

Figure 5




Figure 6

Table I:
The Calendering Equation

i
A B = +

where the permanent relative compression is defined as:

( )
i f i
B B B =

and the nip intensity factor is defined as:

= + + + + +
o L s R M
a a log L a log S a log R a a M

Limits:
- The equation applies between the limits:

( )
i
A B 1 A 2

- Outside these limits:

( ) ( )
f i i
2
f i
B B for B A
B 1 A 4 for B 1 A 2

= <
= >


Parameters Coefficients
B
i
Initial bulk (cm
3
/g)
B
f
Final bulk (cm
3
/g)
L Nip load (kN/m) a
L

S Machine speed (m/min) a
S

R Equivalent roll radius (m) a
R

Average mid-nip web temperature (C) a

M Web moisture (%) a
M
Intercepts A, a
o

The coefficents must be determined experimentally. They are a function of the furnish
properties.

Also, a
R
can be approximated as

( )
R L S
a a a 2 = +


Figure 7






2
p p
2
C
kp t
Z


=

(1)


p
= temperature of paper at Z
t = time
k
p
= thermal conductivity
= density
c
p
= specific heat
K = k
p
/c
p
thermal diffusivity
Bi
s
= Biot Number =Ch/k
p

C = thickness of paper
h = contact resistance of paper
k
p
= as above

Temperature,
p


( ) ( )
( )
c
T
s
p
R s s
z
2e cos Bi 1
c
1
2 Bi cos Bi

=
+
(2)

when T
c
>0.05

and
p s
c
p
k Bi S
T
C WCV
=

S = contact time with roll
V = speed
W = basis weight


Figure 8
The rheology of paper in compression is time-dependent and non-linear with both
pressure and time. Thus, prediction of paper compression in rolling nips is not simple.
To accomplish this, empirical expressions have been developed from platten press data
for pressure and time, and these have been converted to speed and loading in the
calendering equation developed by Kerekes and Crotogino and shown in Figure 7.
Thickness reduction in a stack is calculated by applying this equation from nip to nip, i.e.
the thickness emerging from one nip becomes the entry thickness at the next nip.
2.4 Heat Transfer
Heating paper makes it more pliable, and therefore easier to calender. Accordingly, one
or more hot rolls are often included in calender stacks to transfer heat to paper. Given
the high speeds of modern paper machines, this heat transfer is often incomplete in
raising the temperature through the thickness of paper to the roll temperature. Instead,
the paper surface in contact with the roll surface is at high temperature while the outer
thickness remains at a lower temperature. These temperature gradients can be
estimated from transient-state heat conduction, suitably modified for paper, as shown in
Figure 8.

Temperature gradients have been exploited to achieve a desired an often-desired
objective in calendering: high surface smoothness with minimal thickness reduction.
The concept is called temperature gradient calendering and is illustrated in Figure 9.


Figure 9
3 On-Line Soft-Nip Calendering

A recent development in calendering has been the use of on-line soft-nip calendering
shown in Figure 10. Here, paper is passed through two calender nips without roll wrap.
One of the rolls is a soft polymeric material which deforms to give a wider nip (see
later in supercalendering). The other roll is a high-temperature, heated roll. These
calenders achieve a superior finish by a more pliable nip and by temperature gradient
calendering. They are used on-line.


Figure 10

4 Reeling

In addition to imparting smoothness to paper, the calender stack serves an important
role in producing a uniform reel.

When paper of non -uniform thickness in the CD direction is wound into a reel, the local
roll diameter of the paper roll becomes slightly larger. This requires that paper stretch
more in this zone compared to adjacent zones. This is defined as a hard spot, as
shown in Figure 11. This in turn induces more permanent tensile deformation in paper in
this zone compared to adjacent zones. Consequently, when the paper is unwound, this
zone will be under less tension than adjacent zones under a given tension. Indeed it
may be sag, i.e. be baggy, relative to the adjacent taut zones. To overcome this, press
rooms must increase the average tension, which leads to stress gradients in the web,
which greatly increase the probability of breaks.


Figure 11

For these reasons, press rooms require that all delivered rolls meet a standard of
uniformity, and monitor this by routinely measuring roll hardness profiles.

CD non-uniformities may originate in the headbox, slice, or press, e.g. plugged fabric).
Whatever the source, often the only place for immediate remedial action is at the
calender stack. Evening out paper thickness is accomplished by local heating or cooling
of calender rolls in specific CD zones. This causes a slight roll diameter expansion or
contraction locally, which in turn causes the roll loading to shift to or away from this
zone. This in turn changes the level of paper compression and thereby the level of local
thickness reduction. For example, local cooling increases local web thickness as
illustrated in exaggerated form in Figure 12.


Figure 12

Local heat or cooling of calender rolls is attained by air showers or by local induction
heating. These are illustrated in Figure 13.

Figure 13





Figure 14

5 Other Issues in Calendering
5.1 Blackening

Over-calendering of paper leads to calender blackening. Here calendering is so severe
that fibres fuse together, causing a loss of light scattering surface. Incident light
therefore passes through the paper, giving a dark appearance to the observer. This is
illustrated in Figure 14. This frequently becomes a problem if paper moisture content is
too high, for example 10% or more. Blackening can be remedied by lowering moisture
or reducing calender loading.
5.2 Calender Barring

A calender stack is a spring-mass-dashpot system, with the paper as a spring/dashpot
and the rolls as the mass. Consequently, the stack has natural vibration frequencies
and may therefore be excited to vibrate. The source of excitation may be regular MD
variations in paper or vibrations coming through the floor from other equipment. When
caused to vibrate, the rolls over-compress paper on the downward portion of their cycle,
in essence blackening the web in a line across the machine. This is visible to the eye
and is called barring. Remedial action consists of reducing the number of rolls, pre-
compressing the paper in a breaker stack, or offsetting rolls. All these are aimed at
changing the frequency response of the stack, i.e. the spring constant, the number of
harmonics, the excitation frequency.