Identification and Elimination of Roughness Patterns in Coated Products, 1995 Coating Conference Proceedings

Donald F. Rogowski

Westvaco Research Center

An apparatus and technique have been developed that allow roughness patterns in paper to be identified with the manufacturing process components that imparted the patterns. The procedure has been successfully applied to production situations, three of which are presented in this paper. Commercial applications have facilitated the introduction of new products to the market, improved the quality of existing products, and reduced the quantity of rejected products. The apparatus collects three-dimensional topography measurements with stylus probes from the surfaces of paper products and from foil impressions of process components. The topography measurements are trans-formed into two-dimensional power spectra using the 2-dimensional Fast-Fourier transform, Comparisons of the power spectra for products and process components allow an identification of the process components that are imparting patterns to the topography of a product.