Frangible fiberglass insulation batts
AssigneeKnauf Fiber Glass GmbH
InventorsJon Pereira, Ronald A. Houpt
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A frangible fiberglass insulation batt includes a pair of fiberglass strips arranged to lie in side-by-side relation to one another and a frangible polymerized binder bridge spanning a gap between the fiberglass strips and retaining the fiberglass strips in side-by-side relation. To produce such a batt, a stream of uncured fiberglass insulation is cut along its length to form two side-by-side fiberglass strips and then passed through a curing oven to cause heat generated in the oven to polymerize (cure) binder associated with the strips in the gap to form the frangible polymerized binder bridge.
Claims16
A method of producing a frangible fiberglass insulation batt, the method comprising the steps of
- passing a stream of uncured fiberglass insulation through a cutter to cut the uncured fiberglass insulation to form two side-by-side separate strips,
- then passing the two side-by-side separate strips through a curing oven to expose the strips to a predetermined fiberglass curing heat generated in the curing oven to cause binder associated with opposing longitudinally extending side walls of the two side-by-side separate strips to polymerize to establish a frangible bridge spanning a gap between the opposing longitudinally extending side walls of the strips to produce a frangible fiberglass insulation batt that appears to be monolithic.
A method of producing a frangible fiberglass insulation batt, the method comprising the steps of
- arranging a cutter and curing oven along a conveyor and
- moving uncured fiberglass insulation on the conveyor to intercept the cutter and curing oven and cause the cutter to cut all the way through the uncured fiberglass insulation to provide first and second uncured fiberglass strips separated by a longitudinally extending gap and to pass the uncured fiberglass strips through the curing oven to cause heat extant in the curing oven to polymerize binder coating glass fibers in the first and second uncured fiberglass strips to produce cured fiberglass insulation comprising two cured fiberglass strips separated by the longitudinally extending gap and a longitudinally extending frangible polymerized binder bridge spanning the longitudinally extending gap.
A frangible fiberglass insulation batt comprises
- first and second longitudinally extending cured fiberglass strips separated by a longitudinally extending gap, each strip comprising glass fibers and polymerized binder, and
- a longitudinally extending frangible polymerized binder bridge spanning the longitudinally extending gap and retaining the first and second longitudinally extending cured strips in side-by-side relation to one another, the bridge comprising polymerized binder and an insubstantial amount of glass fibers to cause the bridge to be characterized by internal bonds that are relatively weak in comparison to internal bonds associated with the glass fibers and polymerized binder comprising each of the first and second longitudinally extending cured fiberglass strips.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.