Technical analysis of the honeycomb panel production

Reminder: Honeycomb panel is a sheet made of two thinner panels glued on both sides of a honeycomb core material. The honeycomb core material can be made of kraft paper, aluminum sheet, surface impregnated with synthetic resin (phenolic, polyester, etc.)

The honeycomb panel is a board made by bonding two thinner panels on both sides of the honeycomb core material. The honeycomb core material can be kraft paper or aluminum sheet impregnated with synthetic resin (phenolic, polyester, etc.). The panel can be solid wood, aluminum board, gypsum board, and natural marble. With the US’s “Composite Wood Products Formaldehyde Standard Act”, and China “Indoor Decoration Materials, Wood-based Panels and Products” (GB18580-2001) standard revision. Unlike other man-made panels, honeycomb panels need to be put in a large amount of formaldehyde-containing urea-formaldehyde resin viscose, so its environmentally friendly and non-toxic green quality will make honeycomb panels more and more applications.
The core material of the paper-core honeycomb panel only accounts for about 1% to 5% of the solid material. The use of 1 ton of honeycomb material can replace 30-50 m3 of wood. The promotion of the use of composite honeycomb panels in the furniture manufacturing industry will greatly reduce the amount of wood used, and can improve the defects of man-made panels deformation. Taking a 20mm thick board as an example, if a 2.5mm MDF is used as a panel to make a honeycomb panel, the amount and weight of the material is only about 1/4 of the solid MDF; while the cost of the honeycomb panel is only solid board The honeycomb panel has the advantages of light weight, not easy to deform, and convenient transportation.

Honeycomb panels can be divided into framed honeycomb panels and frameless honeycomb panels.

Framed honeycomb panels will be framed according to the size of the panels, then filled with stretched and shaped honeycomb paper cores, and glued on both sides with solid wood, high-density boards or aluminum panels, and then cooled Press into a composite honeycomb panel. The frameless honeycomb panel is made of a large board (that is, 1220mm×2440mm). First, the core and the surface of the board are hot pressed to make the frameless honeycomb panel. The frameless honeycomb panel can be cut into the required size with a computer panel saw. Then through the frameless honeycomb panel edge banding machine, the supporting edge strips and the decorative edge strips are sealed to form furniture panels of various specifications.

The production of honeycomb panels requires a certain process and a series of equipment to produce. Three aspects, equipment configuration and processing efficiency, product quality, and investment cost are all very important. For framed honeycomb panels and frameless honeycomb panels, we now introduce the production equipment of two types of panels.

1. Gluing equipment 　

The paper core of the honeycomb panel is glued to the upper and lower panels. Adhesive and gluing equipment are required for bonding. Gluing equipment is divided into single-sided gluing machine and double-sided gluing machine. Gluing equipment must ensure that the amount of glue applied to the board is uniform and the amount of glue applied can be accurately controlled to reach the set glue amount per square meter. These are two important performance requirements. The rubber roller is a key component of the glue application equipment. The material of the rubber roller and the running accuracy of the rubber roller are directly related to the quality of the glue. At present, the diameter of the general glue roller in China is 190mm, the power of the glue machine is 1.5-3kw, and the production speed is 20m/min.

There are already some honeycomb panel laminating combined equipment in China. The front part of the combined equipment is a conveyor roller. The frame with the plate core is placed through the double-sided gluing equipment, and the frame with the plate core is evenly coated with adhesive. Cover the panel, and finally enter the roller pressing equipment at the back to press the honeycomb paper core and the upper and lower plates.

2. Pressure equipment　

Pressurization is an important equipment in honeycomb panel processing technology, and different process routes use different pressurization equipment. The pressurization equipment is divided into room temperature pressurization equipment (cold press) and heating pressurization equipment (hot press). Cold pressing equipment is also divided into rolling equipment and flat pressing equipment. Rolling is used for rubbers with fast drying speed, and normal temperature flat pressing is used for white latex with long drying time. Hot-pressing equipment is often used for urea-formaldehyde adhesives, and urea-formaldehyde resins are commonly used for heating and curing, short time and low cost. But urea-formaldehyde glue contains formaldehyde, which is very harmful to human health. Xianfeng PUR polyurethane hot melt adhesive on the market is solvent-free, formaldehyde-free, heat-resistant, and cold-resistant. It is an irreversible bonding method that reacts to moisture in the air. The price of PUR polyurethane hot-melt adhesive is higher than that of urea-formaldehyde glue, but the application temperature is higher than that of urea-formaldehyde glue, which can save part of the energy in the power used for starting up.

The domestic heat press generally has 10 cylinders, each cylinder is 100mm in diameter, the pump power is 2.2kw, the heating power is 36kw, and the maximum pressure is 120T. Domestic cold presses generally have a stroke of 800mm, a total pressure of 50T, and a motor power of 2.2kw.

3. Cutting board equipment

The honeycomb slab made by gluing the upper and lower panels and the honeycomb core board must be cut into the process size of the parts before it can be used to produce furniture. The honeycomb panel is generally cut by a computer panel saw, and a precision sliding table saw can also be used according to the needs of the process. The actual processing proves that choosing the right saw blade is of great significance for improving the cutting quality and production efficiency. The spindle speed of domestic computer panel saws is generally between 4700-4800r/min, the spindle diameter is between 350-400, the maximum additive thickness is between 80-100mm, and the maximum processing length is between 2600-3300mm.

4. Edge banding equipment　

Framed honeycomb panels have frames around them, so you can use ordinary edge banding machines. Since the frameless honeycomb panel has no surrounding frame, the strength of the paper core supporting panel is not enough, so special methods are needed for edge sealing. There are several methods for edge sealing of frameless honeycomb panels:

Method one:

Using a solid frame strip embedding machine, the paper core on the edge of the honeycomb panel is milled off, and then the solid frame strip with glue is inserted. After the honeycomb panel embedded with the solid frame strips has dried, the edges can be sealed with an ordinary edge banding machine.

Method Two:

The frameless honeycomb panel edge banding machine adopts the embedded method to seal the thin supporting edge banding strip on the exposed paper core edge of the honeycomb panel, and then seal the ordinary edge banding strip on the outside.

Method Three:

It is a manual edge bander. First, a part of the paper core on the edge of the honeycomb panel is shaved off, and then the upper and lower panels are folded in a little bit to play a supporting role. Finally, ordinary edge banding will be performed. This method needs to calculate the depth of the core planing and the size of the panel folded in.