Inverted blade metering unit
AssigneeConsolidated Papers, Inc.
InventorsWayne A. Damrau, Michael A. Mayer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for coating a web with a coating material by applying a metered coating material onto the web and smoothing the applied coating material evenly onto the web with a flexible predoctoring blade. The coating material is applied to the web by the predoctoring blade in the form of a high velocity laminar flow in advance of the predoctoring blade. The coating mix is fed to a stem part of the flexible blade via an exit channel having a narrow opening. The loading of the flexible blade, acting as a smoothing device, is controlled in a cross direction of the web in order to control the cross directional profile of the applied coating web. The feed velocity of the laminar flow is at least one small m/sec.
Claims6
An inverted blade metering unit for coating a web backed by a rotatable backing roll with a coating mix, the metering unit comprising:
- a support structure;
- a coating feeder attached to the support structure, for feeding the coating mix onto the web;
- and
- a blade positioned immediately adjacent the web and downstream of the position at which the coating mix is applied to the web by the coating feeder for doctoring coating mix fed onto the web by the coating feeder;
- wherein the metering unit is essentially placed below the backing roll;
- the blade is a flexible blade with an inclination angle of its tip relative to web;
- and
- the coating feeder has a smooth, elongated channel exiting at a proximal end of the flexible blade in a manner which facilitates a laminar flow of the coating mix to the flexible blade and thereby avoids turbulence of the coating mix.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.