Wood-based Panel

Wood-based panels is a general term for a variety of different board products, which have an impressive range of engineering properties.

While some panels types are relatively new on the market, others have been developed and successfully introduced more than hundred years ago. However, even those panel types having a long history of continuous optimization are still a long way from being fully developed and they probably never will be. Technological developments on the one hand and new market and regulative requirements, combined with a steadily changing raw material situation, drive continuous improvements of wood-based panels and their manufacturing processes.

Heavy Duty Power Transmission Belt
Material preparation with flakers or chippers requires high inputs of energy if chips of consistent quality are to be manufactured. This constancy of chip quality has a direct effect on subsequent board properties, making it of crucial importance for the production of wooden boards.

Bin Bottom Belt
Bin bottom belts are used at various process stages in the manufacture of wood based panels: in large wet-fiber bins and chip silos upstream from the dryer, as well as in connection with buffering of dried chips, in dosing bins used in connection with gluing, and as a vital part of the forming line in spreader bins.

Forming Belt

• Forming or spreader belts are a major factor affecting the quality of composite wooden boards to be manufactured. On the forming belt, the fibers or chips supplied by the forming machines are shaped into a mat of (as close as possible to) the precise thickness and weight required, and are fed into the pressing process.
• Despite the many chemical components in wood material, in glue and in sprayed release agents, chemical resistance must be ensured. Even after a lengthy operating period, there must be no chips adhering to the surface. In order that nosebars can be used, high lateral stiffness and flexible splices are required.

Ventilation Belts
Efficient ventilation of the spread fiber mat or chip mat is a major factor affecting the quality of wood based panels to be manufactured. It prevents air pockets forming in the board that could lead to quality issues. Pre-compression of fiber mats or chip mats must be effective and such that sufficient air escapes from the belts over a relatively short distance without lateral expulsion of the wood material occurring.

Pre-press Belts
Modern plants for wood-based products are equipped with continuous pre-presses that pre-compress and ventilate the spread fiber mats or chip mats before these mats are conveyed to the main press. During pre-compression between several successive pairs of rollers, much of the air contained in the fiber mat is expelled. To prevent the fiber mat being subject to a spring-back effect, a pre-press belt conveys it through the pre-press while also holding the mat together in a compressed state.

Technical Requirements of the belts

• So that the fiber mat can be compressed and held together, pre-press belts must be extremely strong; they therefore require a highly modular tension-member structure. To ensure the surface of the pre-compressed boards is of high quality, low-wear belt coatings with good release properties are required.
• Other fundamentally important characteristics are marking-free, reliable and durable splicing technology, as well as being able to use a perforated upper pre-press belt to aid mat ventilation.

Press Outfeed Belt

• As it exits the continuous press, the continuous ribbon of board is transferred to press discharge belts that feed it to the crosscut saw. Press discharge belts usually run as a group of belts (several narrow belts arranged parallel to each other).
• The chief requirement for these belts, which move only horizontally, is reliable, skid-free conveyance of the boards to ensure their exact positioning.