The behavior of cambered belts transiting cylindrical rollers

Abstract

The lateral deformations of webs in roll-to-roll process machines can affect the quality of the manufactured products. Webs with simple nonuniform length variation across their width (camber) will steer toward the long side, leading to the steady state lateral deformation and hence registration. Most previous studies have focused on a cambered web in a free span between two rollers. These studies assume some displacement and slope boundary conditions are known and seek the remaining conditions that would dictate the steady state lateral deformation of the web. This article focuses on the lateral behavior of a cambered web belt transiting between two aligned rollers as the simplest case of multiple span cambered web. Dynamic simulation has been conducted to better understand the response of a cambered web under tension that has been witnessed in tests. There are no boundary conditions enforced and no steady state deformation of the cambered webs. Thus there is no closed-form solution to the lateral movement of a cambered web transits over multiple rollers. This explained why the previous research focused more on the experimental exploration without few theoretical validations. The web travels toward the long side continually from one span to the next until a web guide attempts to return the web to an acceptable lateral location in the process machine.