A high-fidelity model for coupling flow and mechanical deformation of the porous paper web - a key to improved understanding of dewatering and rewet at the press section in paper making

Technical Report · Wed Apr 05 04:00:00 EDT 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1389945· OSTI ID:1389945

Hao, Y. ^[1]; Trebotich, D. ^[1]; Wang, W. ^[1]; Xu, J. ^[1]; Turpin, D. ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

The U.S. pulp and paper industry is the third-largest manufacturing user of energy, with an energy demand of 2,540 trillion Btu in 2010. Within the papermaking process, drying consumes over 400 trillion Btu annually which makes it one of the largest energy saving opportunities. In the 2014 Forest Products Industry Technology Roadmap, it is concluded that increasing the paper web solid content entering the dryer section from the current 45- 55 percent to approaching 65 percent, which would save 1.0 MMBtu per ton or 20 percent of the energy used in drying, is one of the most needed technology breakthroughs to achieve a more sustainable approach for manufacturing pulp and paper products. Achieving such significant energy savings highly depends on understanding the fundamental dynamics of the wet press process and then developing optimized solutions for design of more energy-efficient press processes and equipment. The objective of this project is to develop reliable computational capabilities to accurately simulate the flow of water from/to the porous pulp medium (dewatering/rewetting) during the pressing process in paper making.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-07NA27344
• OSTI ID: 1389945
• Report Number(s): LLNL-TR--728799
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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