Web (manufacturing)

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A web is a long thin and flexible material. A web is generally processed by moving over rollers. Between processing stages, webs are stored and transported as rolls also known as coils, packages and doffs. The end result or use of web manufacturing is usually sheets. The primary motivation to work with webs instead of sheets is economics. Webs, being continuous, can be made at far higher speeds and do not have the start-stop issues of discrete sheet processing.

The of the more common materials which are formed as webs include:

However, web processing is also found in a wide variety of other manufacturing including electronics such as circuit boards, construction materials such as roofing and pharmaceuticals such as drug patches. The size of the web handling industries is vary difficult to estimate. The very smallest counts are 5,000 web manufacturing and converter sites in the North America. However, if commercial printing is included, the count may be as high as 50,000 sites.

Web handling is the art and science of getting a web through a machine with maximum productivity and minimum waste. Areas of web handling research include:

Guiding (lateral control) Tension control Winding Wrinkle reduction

To find more out about web handling, you can Google organizations such as

AIMCAL TAPPI WHRC

Or prolific authors such as

Dr Keith Good Dr. David Roisum Duane Smith Tim Walker Herb Weiss (deceased)

The largest websites dedicated to the subject of web handling include

http://www.convertingmagazine.com/ http://pffc-online.com/ http://www.roisum.com/site_dev/index.html http://webhandling.okstate.edu/

The concept of web handling is also used in several other areas, including:

Tape drives
Web offset printing

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