Mid Sweden University

This study explores the effects of adjusting production rate and plate gaps on fibre distributions and handsheet properties in a double disc (DD) refiner, and examines how these factors influence pulp characteristics and energy use. Experimental results indicate that elevating production rates can reduce specific energy demands at a given tensile index (TI). Beyond individual properties, chi-squared tests were used to compare full fibre property distributions. These analyses demonstrated that pulps with equal TI are statistically indistinguishable across operating conditions, whereas pulps with different TI exhibit clear distributional differences. Overall, findings suggest that improved energy efficiency observed at higher production rates is primarily due to more effective refining mechanisms, rather than differences in the resulting fibre distributions. Further research is needed to clarify the complex interplay between production rate, specific energy, fibre properties, and handsheet properties, particularly the role of fibrillation in TI development.

Fibre properties significantly influence paper quality. This study investigates fibre property development along an industrial pulp production line, analysing morphological distributions and rheological behaviour to enhance refining performance indicators. Understanding these developments is critical for optimising resource efficiency and increasing industrial sustainability. Softwood thermomechanical pulp (TMP), from high-consistency (HC) and low-consistency (LC) refining, and bleached hardwood kraft pulp (BHKP) were examined. Fibre morphological properties were characterised using an optical fibre analyser, while suspension rheology was assessed using a pulp viscometer, supported by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and discrete element method (DEM) simulations. Results demonstrate that fibre property distributions provide deeper insights into refining effects compared to average values alone. Systematic trends showed that HC-refined TMP from the first and second refining stage required significantly greater torque to break the fibrous network and fluidise the pulp compared to pulp that was also LC refined. This indicates that alterations in fibre properties, especially shortened fibre length resulting from different refining processes, govern fibre interactions in the three-dimensional network of the pulp suspensions and, therefore, their flow behaviour. In conclusion, combining morphological distribution analysis with specialised rheological measurements offers a robust tool for better understanding and monitoring mill-scale refining processes, enabling improved process optimisation in pulping and papermaking.

This study evaluates the Ottosen–Stenström–Ristinmaa (OSR) incremental fatigue damage model for predicting fatigue life in powder bed fusion with laser beam (PBF-LB) Ti6Al4V notched specimens. To fit the OSR model, we conduct constant-amplitude tension-compression fatigue tests on PBF-LB Ti6Al4V specimens with as-built surface. Our results highlight a relatively low scatter in fatigue life data for PBF-LB Ti6Al4V across different studies, a critical factor for reliable design against fatigue failure. The study suggests that the stress gradient effect is influenced by the as-built surface, which carries load differently from the target build geometry due to surface undulations. The OSR model effectively captures the characteristics of Wöhler curves for various notch geometries and stress ratios. We validate the OSR model with out-of-phase tension-torsion tests, demonstrating that it provides safe fatigue life predictions for nonproportional loads. Overall, our findings show that the OSR model offers conservative fatigue life predictions for PBF-LB Ti6Al4V, underscoring its practical utility and reinforcing the suitability of PBF-LB Ti6Al4V for aircraft applications. 

We present a method for pulp particle characterization based on a truncated lognormal mixture (TLM) model, as motivated by size statistics of organisms. We use an optical fiber analyzer to measure the length–width distribution of kraft-cooked roundwood or sawmill sources, of chemi-thermomechanical pulp (CTMP) samples from roundwood or sawmill sources, and the same CTMP samples after kraft post-processing. Our results show that bimodal TLMs capture salient features of the investigated pulp particle distributions, by decomposition into a large-particle and a small-particle fraction. However, we find that fibers from sawmill sources, which have not undergone mechanical treatment, cannot be described by TLM, likely due to non-random sampling. Within the confines of our dataset, the TLM characterization predicts laboratory sheet properties more effectively than conventional averaging methods for pulp particle size distributions. The TLM characterization is intended as a tool for controlling the pulp production process towards higher product quality, uniformity, and energy efficiency, pending further mill trials for validation. 

In the pulp and paper industry, pulp testing is typically a labor-intensive process performed on hand-made laboratory sheets. Online quality control by automated image analysis and machine learning (ML) could provide a consistent, fast and cost-efficient alternative. In this study, four different supervised ML techniques—Lasso regression, support vector machine (SVM), feed-forward neural networks (FFNN), and recurrent neural networks (RNN)—were applied to fiber data obtained from fiber suspension micrographs analyzed by two separate image analysis software. With the built-in software of a commercial fiber analyzer optimized for speed, the maximum accuracy of 81% was achieved using the FFNN algorithm with Yeo–Johnson preprocessing. With an in-house algorithm adapted for ML by an extended set of particle attributes, a maximum accuracy of 96% was achieved with Lasso regression. A parameter capturing the average intensity of the particle in the micrograph, only available from the latter software, has a particularly strong predictive capability. The high accuracy and sensitivity of the ML results indicate that such a strategy could be very useful for quality control of fiber dispersions. 

Softwood pulp flow in rotating and non-rotating grooves is numerically simulated in the present study to investigate the fluid flow and the forces acting on a representative surface mounted in the groove. The viscosity of softwood pulp with various consistencies is available from the measurements reported in the literature providing the opportunity to examine the effects of fiber consistency on the velocity and pressure distribution within the groove. The simulations are carried out in OpenFOAM for different values of gap thickness, angular velocity and radial positions from which the pressure coefficient and shear forces values are obtained. It is found that the shear forces within the gap increase linearly with the angular velocity for all fiber consistencies investigated and in both grooves. Also, this behavior can be successfully predicted by modeling the gap flow as a Couette flow in a two-dimensional channel. Meanwhile, a more detailed analysis of the flow kinetic energy close to the stagnation point using Bernoulli's principle is carried out to provide a better understanding of the pressure coefficient variation with angular velocity in the non-rotating groove. A comparison of pressure coefficients obtained numerically with those calculated by considering the compression effects revealed that the comparison effects are dominating in the pulp flow within the groove.

The split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) is a widely used method for analyzing the strength-strain characteristics of wood materials [1]. Experiments show that, as wood is a relatively soft material and the experimental setup is limited in size, the entire wave is not fully recorded before it is mixed with waves reflected from the ends. To be able to analyze how much energy is dissipated in a deformation process, it is required that the whole wave be recorded. In the present investigation, the pressure tail was reconstructed theoretically in the incident bar using the data from the transmission bar, which should allow for a reduction in the error in the energy of the waves.

When a deformation wave propagates along bars, part of its energy dissipates into the environment. In this study, a modification of the SHPB was proposed to calculate and analyze the amount of energy the system loses, not due to the sample. Formulas for energy and momentum equilibrium were used [2]. The influence of the length of the striker and the level of input energy were also analyzed.

In the presented experiment, all energy tails were completely recorded. This allowed for the theoretical reconstruction of the tail and a comparison with the recorded one. The pressure tail in the transmitted wave was manually shortened and replaced with a theoretical tail. The theoretical tail was created by performing an exponential curve fit with points from the tail up to the point where it had been shortened. The results show that only about 10% of the tail needs to be registered to accurately reconstruct it. When a registered wave is replaced with a reconstructed one, the resulting error in the total wave's energy value is no greater than 0.3% for a 500mm striker and 1.5% for a 250mm striker.

The present study deals with the numerical simulation of softwood pulp flow in the rotating and non-rotating grooves in an aim to investigate the fluid flow and forces acting on a representative surface mounted in the groove. The viscosity of softwood pulp in different consistencies is available from the experimental measurements reported in the literature providing the opportunity to examine the effects of fiber consistency on the velocity and pressure distribution within the groove. The simulations are carried out in OpenFOAM for different values of gap thickness and angular velocity from which the pressure coefficient and shear forces values are obtained. It is found that the pressure increases at the stagnation point located at the gap entrance in the non-rotating groove due to tangential motion of the upper wall which induces the helical motion of the pulp flow in the groove’s cavity. However, such an effect is not observed in the rotating cavity close to the groove inlet. Meanwhile, by moving further along the channel length toward the outlet the helical motion is enhanced and an increase in the pressure is observed at the stagnation point. The shear forces over the representative surface are found to be independent of representative surface’s location and it is in the same level in the rotating and non-rotating grooves. In addition to the numerical simulations, an analytical discussion is also presented to provide a deeper understanding of pressure coefficient and shear forces variations with different parameters in the rotating and non-rotating grooves.

This work presents a hypothesis of how steam flow effect the chip flow in the Double disc (DD) refiner and test it with a numerical simulation. DD refiners are often considered one of the most energy efficient refiner models. However, feeding chips into these machines is not as easy as feeding single disc refiners due to the rotating geometries. It is our belief that to increase energy efficiency in refining we need to increase also the production rates. The authors have previously noticed that in a standard DD rotor, steam flowed both in the same direction as the flow of woodchips and in the opposite direction. It is our hypothesis that backwards flowing steam in and in close proximity to the critical transition from the non-rotating geometry to the rotating geometry is negative for the material flow. To evaluate the hypothesis a new rotor was designed to eliminate the backwards flow. The authors have previously presented a two way coupled multiphase model with steam flow modeled with Computational Fluid Dynamics and wood chips modeled as groups of connected spherical particles with Discrete Element Method with a momentum exchange model. This model was utilized to model the flow of steam and woodchips in a DD under normal operational parameters, with the conventional rotor and with the new rotor. The throughput of wood chips was evaluated and normalized with regards to the chip flow to the refiner. The flow was considerable more stable in the new rotor, the throughput was close to 100 % for the observed time window, and the steam flow was more uniform. The results of the simulation supports the hypothesis. The next step in the research would be to test the new rotor in full scale operation.

Particles in mechanical pulp are a heterogeneous popu-lation, but commonly described using averages based on wide and skewed distributions. It was found that these aver-ages may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the char-acter of the material and also how the material has been de-veloped along the process. This study is based on measure-ments of individual particle dimensions (length, curl, and ex-ternal fibrillation) in mill operation of CTMP and TMP as detected in an optical analyser.