Effects of Refiner Plates with Different Fillings on TMP Properties

Abstract

This study conducted a comparative analysis of two refiner plates that had different bar patterns. The plates were designed with three distinct zones, including the high-intensity zone, the transition zone, and the low-intensity zone, and had a draft angle of 4–5 degrees. The two refiner plates had a significant difference in cutting edge length (CEL) of approximately four times. Specifically, TMP plate A (TP A) had a CEL of 5.1 km/s, while plate B (TP B) had a CEL of 22.7 km/s, indicating that TP A applied greater force to the wood chips during refining. TP A exhibited greater stock throughput at the same refining energy compared to TP B due to its smaller CEL. The low-intensity refining of TP B promoted the fibrillation of TMP fibers, leading to a large decrease in fiber width without significantly changing the mean fiber length before and after refining. The bulk of TMP and CTMP increased slightly more in TP B than in TP A. However, TP A showed a greater decrease in tensile strength due to a larger decrease in fiber length, whereas there was no significant change in tear strength between the two plates.