Paper properties, such as formation and wire marks, are influenced by the initial drainage and water removal on a paper machine wire. Then, drainage behaviour was studied from the view point of dynamic wettability and water removal by fabrics. The former is related to water penetration into fabric, and the latter is to extraction of water from the fabric.
Plastic single layer fabrics (103 and 86 mesh), a plastic double layer fabric (180 mesh), a bronze wire (90 mesh) and a triple layer fabric were examined.
Contact angles of a water drop after reaching a fabric surfaces were measured in every 10ms. In case of dry fabrics contact angles were proportional to the fabric mesh number.
When fabrics were wetted, little differences in the contact angle was found between mesh numbers, but contact angles of the plastic multi layer and bronze decreased more rapidly than the plastic single layer. In a dry fabric, it was related to physical characteristics of wire filaments.
The drainage volume was determined by means of centrifugal force. The fabric of a small mesh number had a more drainage volume. The magnitude of drainage volume were in the order of triple layer, double layer and single layer. Bronze wire which was more wettable showed bigger drainage volume compared to plastics. Higher water retention in fabrics, larger pore size and higher wettability of fabrics showed a tendencies to better water removal.
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