HOW TO DETERMINE THE PROPERTY-DEVELOPMENT CAPABILITY OF TISSUE PAPER MACHINES:

The Technology Curve approach.

SUMMARY.

Each finished tissue and towel product bears the imprint of its manufacturing capability. However, choices about basis weight, strength, and fiber content, also present in the product, seemingly obliterate the original imprint. By separating the effect of the independent variables, basis weight, strength, and fiber content (called normalization), one can uncover the pure technological capability. The resulting performance, or "technology curves" can be used to evaluate the innate technological capability, enabling comparisons with other production equipment within a company, or cross comparisons with other the technology of other manufacturers. Furthermore, the technology curves for bulk, water absorptive capacity, and handfeel, and the corresponding equations between these dependent variables and strength, basis weight and fiber content allows prediction of product properties for any choice of independent variables.

This article demonstrates a method for accomplishing the above for three properties, handfeel, bulk, and water absorptive capacity.