Polymer Processing
Calendering
CALENDERING
Asst.Prof.Dr.Sirirat Wacharawichanant
Department of Chemical Engineering
Silpakorn University
Calendering

It is a process in which a hot mass of polymer
is fashioned into a continuous sheet by
passage through a system of heated rolls that
is a calender.

The sheet is then cooled and wound up into
rolls.

It may be embossed with patterns before
winding or it may be deposited on to a
continuous web e.g. fabric, paper to form an
adherent coating.

A calender is a device used to process a
polymer melt into a sheet or film.

It has been in use for over a hundred years
and when first developed it was mainly used
for processing rubber, but nowadays is
commonly used for producing thermoplastic
sheets, coatings and films.
Cont. Calendering Cont.

Calendering is a continuous processing
technique to product very wide and infinitely
long sheets or films of uniform thickness from
premixed thermoplastic compounds like
plasticized PVC.

The calender consists of a series of four
heated counter-rotating heavy rolls. The final
thickness of the sheet is determined by the
clearance between the last pair of rolls.
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Calendering Cont.

The basic idea of the machine is that squishes
a heat softened polymer between two or more
rollers (this area is called a nip) to form a
continuous sheet.

To begin the process the polymer must go
through blending and fluxing before it goes
through the calender.

Blending is a process that creates the desired
polymer and fluxing heats and works this
blended polymer to make it a consistency
easier for the calender to handle.
Calendering Cont.

One thing about polymers being calendered is
that the sheet going through the rollers tends
to follow the faster moving roller of the two
that it's in contact with and it also sticks more
to the hotter rolls.

That is why calenders typically end with a
smaller roller at a higher speed to peel the
sheet off.
Calendering Cont.

The polymer is then ready to go through the
calender and will leave it at a thickness
dependent mainly on the gap between the last
two rollers.

The last set of rollers also dictate the surface
finish; for example, they can influence the
glossiness and texture of the surface.
Calendering Cont.

It is also why the middle roller is normally kept
cooler so that the sheet won't stick to the
other rollers nor will it split by sticking to both
rollers which can happen.

This splitting phenomenon has forced
calender operators to desire a high friction
ratio between two rollers, which ranges from
5/1 to 20/1.
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Calendering

In Figure 1 a schematic representation is
shown including cooling rolls and a windup
roll.
Figure 1 Polymer processing on a calender.
Calendering

The two-mill is a shortened, discontinuous
version of a calender, in which the melt
remains adhered to one or both rolls and is
mixed during several cycles in the nip
between the rolls rotating with different
speeds.
Cont. Calendering Cont.

Calendering is often combined with printing or
with laminating a layer of fibric or paper.

The molten compound is homogenized in the
nips between the three successive pairs of
rolls, wherein very high pressures are built up
because of the viscosity of the melt.
Cont. Material Specifications

The best polymers for calendering are
thermoplastics. One reason for this is
because they soften at a temperatures much
lower than their melting temperature giving a
wide range of working temperatures.

They also adhere well to the rollers, allowing
them to continue through the chain well, but
they don't adhere to well and get stuck on the
roller.
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Material Specifications Cont.

The last reason is that thermoplastic melts
have a fairly low viscosity, but their still
strong enough to hold together and not run all
over the place.

Heat sensitive materials are also great for
calenders because calenders put immense
pressures on the materials to work them and
therefore do not need as high of temperatures
to process them limiting the chances of
thermal degradation.
Advantages of Calendering

The best quality sheets of plastic today are
produced by calenders; in fact, the only
process that competes with the calender in
sheet forming is extruding.

The calender also is very good at handling
polymers that are heat sensitive as it causes
very little thermal degradation.
Material Specifications Cont.

This is why calendering is often the method of
choice for processing PVC.

Due to the nature of the process the polymers
must have a shear and thermal history that is
consistent across the width of the sheet.
Advantages of Calendering Cont.

Another advantage to calendering is that it is
good at mixing polymers that contain high
amounts of solid additives that don't get
blended or fluxed in very well.

This is true because compared to extrusion
the calender produces a large rate of melt for
the amount of mechanical energy that is put
in.
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Advantages of Calendering Cont.

Due to this companies are able to add more
filler product to their plastics and save money
on raw materials.

Calenders are very versatile machines
meaning that it is very easy to change settings
like the size of the roller gap.
Disadvantages of Calendering Cont.

If the thickness is below 0.006 inches then
there is a tendency for pinholes and voids to
appear in the sheets.

If the thickness is greater than about 0.06
inches though there is a risk of air entrapment
in the sheet.

Any desired thickness within that range
though would turn out much better using a
calender process.
Disadvantages of Calendering

Although the calendering process produces a
better product than the extruding process
there are a couple of disadvantages.

One disadvantage is that the process is more
expensive to perform which is a major
deterrent for many companies.

The calendering process also is not as good
at too high of gauges or too low of gauges.
Types of Calender

L Type
 The L type is the same as seen in Figure 2 but
mirrored vertically.
 Both these setups have become popular and
because some rollers are at 90o to others their
roll separating forces have less effect on
subsequent rollers.
 L type calender is often used for processing
rigid vinyl and inverted L type calender is
normally used for flexible vinyl.
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Types of Calender Cont. Types of Calender Cont.

Z Type
 The z type calender places each pair of rollers
at right angles to the next pair in the chain.
 This means that the roll separating forces that
are on each roller individually will not effect
any other rollers.
 Another feature of the Z type calender is that is
that they lose less heat in the sheet because as
can be seen in Figure 3 the sheet travels only a
quarter of the roller circumference to get
Figure 2 Schematic diagram of four-roll inverted-L calender. between rollers.

Types of Calender Cont. Types of Calender Cont.

I Type
 The I type, as seen in Figure 4, was for many
years the standard calender used.
 It can also be built with one more roller in the
stack. This design was not ideal though
because at each nip there is an outward force
that pushes the rollers away from the nip.

Figure 3 Calender (Z type).

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Types of Calender Cont. Calender Machine

Figure 4 Calender (I type). Figure 5 Calender.

Calender Machine Cont. Calender Machine Cont.

Figure 6 Calendering. Figure 7 Calendering.