CONTINUOUS CLEANING OF DRYER FABRICS

Dryer fabrics are designed to provide maximum life at optimum production rates without compromising the quality of the paper being manufactured. Maintenance of the specified permeability throughout the useful life of the dryer fabric is paramount to achieving this. Permeability decreases when the open spaces of a dryer fabric become filled with contaminants, commonly cellulose fines, fillers, and stickies from recycled deinked fiber. When this happens, the dryer section loses efficiency and sheet blowing, wrinkles, dry end breaks, and other problems occur. This paper discusses the different cleaning methods that can be used to clean and condition dryer fabrics to keep them as close as possible to their original design characteristics. The choice of method should take into consideration the type of furnish, the grade of paper being manufactured, the particular dryer section, the design of the dryer fabric, and other factors. Larger, faster paper machines and the use of more recycled fiber make the cleaning and conditioning of dryer fabrics increasingly essential.