This material is widely used in furniture production - for the manufacture of cabinets, drawers, upholstered furniture bases and other things, as well as in construction, shipbuilding and automotive industry. A fiberboard, or fiberboard, has excellent quality and good structural properties, and costs significantly less than natural wood. Flexibility, elasticity, isotropy and resistance to cracking make it a widely demanded and valuable material. What is it, what does it consist of and what technologies and equipment for the production of fiberboard are used? These questions will be answered by this article.
Fiberboard composition
The main components for the manufacture of this sheet material are round wood of low quality or wood waste. Sometimes they are used simultaneously. After steaming and breaking this raw material, sheets are produced from it. In order to increase the performance properties of fiberboard, various synthetic resins (hardening agents), as well as rosin, paraffin (water repellents), antiseptics, etc. are added to the wood pulp.
Fiberboard production technology
Production of fiberboard can be carried out in two ways - wet and dry. In the first case, plates of one-sided smoothness are obtained, in the second - two-sided. Let us consider in more detail these methods and what equipment for the production of fiberboard is used.
Wet way
The most widely used wet technology. It implies that the formation of wood fiber carpet is carried out in the aquatic environment. The wet method for the production of fiberboard includes the following main steps:
- The chips are washed and ground twice. Then the resulting mixture is diluted with water (pulp) and stored (while it is constantly mixed).
- The pulp is mixed with phenol-formaldehyde resin and other additives. Then it is heated to 60 degrees. This process is called sizing.
- Further, equipment for the production of fiberboard, called a casting machine, is used. It allows you to form a wood fiber carpet from the finished mass.
- After this, spinning, drying and hardening of the plates occurs. Together, these three procedures are called compression. As a result, it should produce fiberboard with a moisture content of not more than 1.5%.
- The final stage of production is the final drying and wetting of the boards before they are trimmed. Finished sheets are aged to fix their shape for at least a day.
The disadvantage of this production method is that after it remains a large amount of wastewater. Another significant drawback is the use of phenol-formaldehyde resin, since phenol is almost impossible to remove from finished fiberboard sheets.
Dry way
This production technology allows to obtain fiberboard with improved performance. Many stages, with the exception of the latter, are similar to the wet manufacturing process. The fibers are also milled twice, but water is not added to produce pulp.
In the process of grinding a variety of additives (organic and not) are introduced into the mass, which allows to give the material the required properties. Further, salting is carried out to form the carpet, its compaction and pressing. At this stage, special equipment is used for the production of fiberboard - vacuum plants and tape-roll format presses.
The plates are pressed at high temperatures (up to 200 degrees) and at strong pressure, which is maintained for half a minute and then gradually decreases (from 6.5 to 1 MPa).Finishing stages - aging and final fixing of sheets during the day. Then, the finished plates are given the desired size on the format-edged circular saw machines.
With the dry production method, fiberboard sheets are smooth on both sides and have specific operational properties - fire resistance, moisture resistance, etc.
What equipment is used for the manufacture of fiberboard?
Regardless of the method of production (dry or wet method), the equipment used is similar and necessarily high-tech. In the manufacturing process of fiberboards involved:
- six-saw machine for the production of fiberboard (cutting wood raw materials for harvesting);
- chipping machines (grinding of raw materials to the state of chips);
- special high-power magnet (cleaning the mass from metal impurities);
- defibrers and refiners (for coarse and fine grinding of the mass to fibers);
- casting machines (pulp formation);
- format and tape-roller presses (making the fibrous mixture look like sheets);
- hydraulic press (carpet seal);
- grinding machines (alignment of thickness and smoothing of fiberboard sheets).
To obtain high-quality fiberboard, it is important not only to use modern high-tech equipment, but also to properly configure it to produce material with a minimum amount of scrap.
The manufacture of fiberboard is a rather laborious process, but this business is in high demand today. This material is in good demand among consumers, as it has advantageous advantages (quality, wear resistance and price) over more expensive and less functional ones.
