Fluid Mechanics of Papermaking

Abstract

Papermaking is to a large extent a multiphase flow process in which the structure of the material and many of the relevant properties of the final product are determined by the interaction between water and the wood fibers. The dominant feature of a suspension composed of wood fibers and water is its inherent propensity to form bundles of mechanically entangled fibers, known as fiber flocs. However, the phenomena apparent throughout the papermaking process are not unique but in fact have a generic fluid dynamical nature.