The removal of water is an integral part of tissue paper production. Through air drying (TAD) is used for water removal when producing premium tissue grade products, however, at the price of higher energy demand. A better understanding of TAD may therefore lower the energy demand. The objective was to investigate the influence of formation, pulp type and grammage on non-uniform drying and air flow through sheets. A laboratory method, based on infrared thermography, was used to determine drying time and area-specific and mass-specific drying rates. Air flow rate and pressure drop were used to determine flow resistance and modified permeability. Pulp type had a large influence on the air flow through the sheet. Modified permeability, i.e. the material property describing the air flow through the fibre network, was strongly dependent on grammage for lower grammages, while it approached a constant value for higher grammages. In contrast to that, mass-specific drying rates were similar for the different pulp types at lower grammages, but proved to be grammage-dependent for higher grammages. Formation did not influence the drying speed to any large extent. The results illustrate that industrial TAD processes operate under very special process conditions due to the low grammage sheets.

No description available.

Through air drying (TAD) enables production of premium tissue products with increased softness, absorbency and bulk. On the other hand, the energy consumption of the TAD process is considerably higher than for conventional tissue drying alternatives. Previous studies on the TAD process have indicated that the drying rate for low grammage sheets is independent of the flow of air through the sheets.   The objective of this work has been to investigate and quantify how drying times and drying rates for low grammage sheets are affected by the addition of external web heating in a TAD process. Moist Eucalyptus and softwood sheets with grammages ranging from 15 to 60 g/m2 were dried in a laboratory process by an air flow through them and an IR-dryer with a variable power output. During drying, pressure drop and air flow were measured and an IR-camera recorded surface temperatures which enabled calculation of drying times and drying rates.   Using the IR-dryer to dry sheets shortened the drying time with at least 20 % and up to 60 % compared to sheets dried without IR-heating. Both pulp types and all grammages showed a linear relationship between drying times and the amount of evaporated water. Mass specific drying rates however, were very high for low grammage sheets and decreased rapidly with increasing grammage. Especially for low grammage sheets the drying rate had a very strong dependency on the IR-power and increased significantly with every increasing IR-power level. This finding implies that heat transfer could be a limiting factor when drying low grammage sheets in the TAD process. Another interesting phenomenon was observed for all grammages of the Eucalyptus sheets. Through these sheets the air flow rate increased with increasing IR-power, something that was not seen at all for the softwood sheets.   To summarize, adding external web heating to a TAD process resulted in a positive effect on drying times and drying rates, especially for low grammage sheets typical for the TAD process.