Design, Mechanism Analysis And Experimental Research Of Nip Rollers Conveying System For Flexible Film

With the development of energy and environment, fuel cell gets a broad market prospectas one of the new clean energy. As a core component of fuel cell, fuel cell membraneelectrode assembly (MEA) highly demands on their production process. Conveying system isa tie of MEA’s production process modules. It is essential to the quality of MEA’s production.Film conveying system’s design, analysis and experimental study were discussed in this paperwith three-layer transition film as the object.Firstly, according to three-layer transition film’s functional requirements, nip rollersconveying system for roll to roll was designed. Three kinds of schemes were compared andcylinder nip rollers were determined as a more rational structure. Then for several sets of niprollers’ recombination and feeding systems, gas channel’s independent control and circuit’smaster-slave synchronization feeding schemes were respectively designed.Secondly, the rules of three kinds of nip rollers’ pressure distribution were comparedthrough mathematical model and simulation model. The results show that nip rollers’ contactdistribution force is "concave" parabolic distribution in the working zone, and the uniformityof pressure distribution will be improved if rubber layer is coated on metal roller’s surface, oron the basis of rubber layer the roller’s diameter is increased or rigid material is used in metallayer. Then prestress modal analysis was presented for solid core nip rollers, to forecast niprollers’ resonance. Also, roll contour was optimized using simulating optimization, whichmade nip rollers’ pressure distribution relatively uniform in the working zone. In addition, theexperimental method was studied for measuring friction distribution.Then, mathematical model of film’s lateral displacement were established for single niprollers’ inconsistent pressure in shaft’s end, as well as double nip rollers axis’ not parallel. Thefeasible method of using idler roller for correcting film’s lateral displacement was proposed.Lastly, initial fabric adjustment rule was researched for nip rollers conveying system. The effects of tension, speed, span, and axis angle on film’s lateral displacement wereanalyzed for double nip rollers conveying system. Then the correction effects of idler roller’slocation and angle on film’s lateral displacement were discussed. The results indicate:(1) forreducing film’s lateral displacement, tension should be increased appropriately, and speed,span, and axis angle should be decreased;(2) idler roller using for correcting lateraldisplacement should layout in the middle of double nip rollers to make the package corner ofnip rollers and film go to zero, and also the correction angle and axis angle have the same sizeand opposite direction.This proposed nip rollers conveying system has been validated in fuel cell’s speciallaminated equipment and achieved good results.