Kimberly-clark Corporation

Elizabeth A Wolfson

Fred R Radwanski

Wayne C Sigl

James L Post

A fiberizer for disintegrating fibrous sheets and a method of fiberizing using a rotor having peripheral teeth arranged within bands which extend transversely around the rotor axis is disclosed. The tooth pattern in each band is circumferentially extending and shaped approximately in a sinusoidal wave on the rotor periphery extending in the direction of rotation, and providing a substantially sinusoidal distribution of impacts against a sheet fed to an anvil in the form of simple harmonic motion along a cross direction impact line adjacent the anvil and thus transversing impacts within adjacent strips of the sheet corresponding to the bands. Individual points along the width of the fibrous sheet are periodically impulsively loaded by the impacts when they are at a period of highest response, i.e., when the initial stress level has been increased to the highest optimal stress without causing fiber damage, and producing mechanical disturbances within the sheets which cause vibrations and break interfiber bonds so as to precondition the sheet as it is fed to the anvil.

Method and apparatus for fiberizing fibrous sheets

The present invention provides an improved apparatus for sequentially dispensing individual, liquid-impregnated sheets along a dispensing direction from an interfolded array of the sheets while presenting a next available sheet from the array in a graspable position. The apparatus includes a container for holding the array of sheets and includes a distinctive guiding mechanism. The guiding mechanism is located on the container and extends substantially linearly along a direction transverse to the dispensing direction. It contacts a major surface of an overlapped portion between a preceding sheet and a successive sheet, and directs the sheets along a curvilinear path, which curves in a direction substantially perpendicular to the sheet surface. This configuration induces a separation between the individual sheets and presents a portion of the successive sheet in a graspable position outside of the container.

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Winnebago County, WI, United States of America

Elizabeth A Wolfson