RALEIGH - The Nonwovens Institute (NWI) at the North Carolina State University has installed a new Orion slitter/rewinder system which is now available for developmental and commercial use.
The new equipment, manufactured by Calemard by Spoolex, has been designed to handle a wide variety of nonwoven roll-goods, including spunbond, meltblown and carded/needlepunched staple fibres up to 1.8-metres wide/1.2-metres in diameter and can slit product (material dependent) into widths down to 30-mm.
Given the wide variety of products that could be run, the key to the system's versatility is the precise tension control. “Most finished articles using nonwovens require fabric widths much smaller than even pilot-line production,” said NWI Deputy Director Tom Daugherty. “The new equipment expands NWI’s capability by readily allowing us to slit fabrics to custom widths as needed for end-use products; whether those fabrics were made on NWI’s equipment or elsewhere.
“Whether for product development or early/small-scale commercial deployment, we believe there is a strong industry need for this capability. NWI is ready to meet that need.”
Dr. Behnam Pourdeyhimi, NWI’s Executive Director added: "The addition of the Orion slitter/rewinder is the latest demonstration of our commitment to bringing state-of-the-art nonwovens processing equipment to both academia and industry."
Based at the Centennial Campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NWI is an innovative global partnership between industry, government and academia. NWI has over 45 member companies / organizations spanning the breadth of the nonwovens value chain.
