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 Product Equipment

A complete particle board production line is a complex system where multiple sections of equipment work in coordination.

1. Raw Material Preparation Section

This section processes raw materials into qualified wood chips.

  Chipper: A core piece of equipment. It cuts raw materials like logs, branches, and wood scraps into uniformly sized wood chips. For a cost-effective line, an efficient and durable disk chipper or drum chipper is typically selected to ensure stable chip output and quality.

  Screening and Re-crushing System: The produced chips are screened. Qualified chips proceed; oversized chips are sent to a re-crusher for further reduction. This ensures chip uniformity, which is crucial for subsequent flake quality and board performance.

2. Flake Preparation Section

This section processes wood chips into qualified flakes.

  Flaker: Planes the cleaned wood chips into flakes of the required thickness. This is a key machine determining the morphological quality of the flakes.

 Ring Mill: Further refines larger flakes or particles into finer surface flakes. The line typically needs to produce both core-layer and surface-layer flakes to meet the board's structural requirements.

3. Drying, Screening, and Gluing Section

  Rotary Drum Dryer: Employs efficient and energy-saving rotary drum dryers to reduce the moisture content of the flakes to the standard required by the process. A large-capacity drying system is needed for a 1000 m³/day output.

  Airflow Sorter: Classifies dried flakes by size—fine flakes for the board surface and coarse flakes for the core—ensuring a smooth surface and strong internal structure.

  Blender (Gluing System):

      Core Blender: Applies adhesive (e.g., UF resin) to core flakes.

      Surface Blender: Applies adhesive to surface flakes. Cost-effective lines use efficient and precise ring blenders to ensure even glue distribution, reducing adhesive consumption.

      Additive System: For producing boards with special functions (e.g., fire-retardant boards), appropriate chemicals can be added here.

4. Forming and Pre-pressing Section

  Mechanical Forming Station: This is key for achieving cost-effectiveness and stable production. It lays the glued core and surface flakes into a uniform, continuous mat in a "core-surface-surface" structure. Precise forming is essential for ensuring uniform board density and accurate 15mm thickness.

  Pre-press: Initially compresses the fluffy mat, giving it sufficient strength for handling and feeding into the hot press, while also removing some air.

5. Hot Pressing Section (Core Section)

  Continuous Press: For a 1000 m³/day line, a Continuous Press is the optimal choice for cost-effectiveness, high output, and high quality. The mat passes through on a continuous steel belt under set temperature, pressure, and time to be cured. Compared to traditional multi-opening presses, continuous presses produce boards with more uniform density and better surface quality, plus they offer higher automation, leading to lower energy and labor costs.

  Heating System: Typically uses thermal oil or steam as a heat medium to provide stable heat to the press platens.

6. Finishing Section

 Cooler and Star Cooler: Cools the hot boards exiting the press, setting their shape and reducing moisture content.

 Cross-Cut and Edge Trimming Saws: Cuts the continuous board strip into required sizes (e.g., 1220mm x 2440mm).

  Sanding Machine: Sands the board surfaces to ensure precise thickness (e.g., 15mm) and a smooth, flat finish, providing an excellent base for subsequent laminating or direct use. Usually, a multi-head heavy-duty sander is employed.

7. Automation Control System

  Central Control Room (PLC/DCS): The entire production line is controlled by an advanced Distributed Control System (DCS) or Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). This is the nerve center that enables fully automated monitoring and adjustment from raw material to finished product, ensuring stable operation, improved efficiency, reduced human error, and ultimately achieving "cost-effectiveness."

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 Product Process

A cost-effective particle board production line focuses on optimizing energy consumption, adhesive usage, and labor costs while ensuring product quality, achieving efficient and stable output. Below is the complete process for manufacturing 15mm thick particle board.

1.  Raw Material Preparation & Handling

      Raw Materials: Uses low-cost, renewable resources like small-diameter logs, branches, and wood processing residues (e.g., off-cuts, shavings).

      Chipping: Raw materials are processed into uniform process chips by a chipper.

      Screening & Washing: Chips are screened to remove oversize or fine particles and washed to remove dirt, sand, metals, and other impurities, protecting downstream equipment and ensuring product quality.

2.  Flake Preparation & Grading

      Flaking: Qualified chips are fed into a flaker to be planed into flakes of specific dimensions.

      Refining: Some flakes are further reduced in size by a ring mill to produce finer surface-layer flakes.

     Grading: An airflow sorter separates the flakes into coarse core-layer flakes and fine surface-layer flakes. This separation is key to producing a 15mm board with a smooth surface and a strong internal structure.

3.  Drying & Blending (Gluing)

      Drying: Core and surface flakes are dried separately in rotary drum dryers, reducing moisture content to a low process-specific level (typically 2-4%). Cost-effective lines utilize efficient heating systems (e.g., using waste heat from the plant) to reduce fuel costs.

     Blending (Gluing): This is a core step for controlling cost and quality.

          Dried flakes are sent to the core blender and surface blender separately.

          Inside the high-speed rotating blenders, flakes are uniformly mixed with adhesive (typically Urea-Formaldehyde resin UF), hardener, waterproofing agent (wax), etc.

          Cost-Effectiveness: Precision blending systems ensure the adhesive is atomized and evenly coats each flake, minimizing adhesive usage while meeting bonding strength requirements.

4.  Forming & Pre-pressing

      Forming: The glued flakes are laid by a mechanical forming station into a continuous, uniform, and consistent-thickness mat in a three-layer structure: "Surface-Core-Surface". Forming accuracy directly determines the thickness uniformity of the final 15mm board and its density profile.

      Pre-pressing: The fluffy mat is initially compacted by a pre-press to gain handling strength for transportation and to remove some air.

5.  Hot Pressing (Curing)

      Hot Pressing: This is the core step where the board is formed. The mat enters a continuous press.

          Under high temperature (typically 180-220°C) and pressure, the adhesive between the flakes cures rapidly, bonding the loose flakes into a solid board.

          Key to Cost-Effectiveness: The Continuous Press is the central equipment for achieving high cost-effectiveness. It enables non-stop production, offering much higher efficiency than batch-type multi-opening presses. It also produces boards with more uniform density, more stable quality, and lower energy and labor costs.

      Precise control of the press's temperature, pressure, and speed ensures stable production of 15mm thick boards.

6.  Finishing & Cutting

     Cooling: The hot board must be passed through a cooling conveyor to stabilize its internal structure and moisture content.

      Trimming & Cutting: The cooled continuous board strip is cut into standard sizes (e.g., 1220mm x 2440mm) by cross-cut and edge-trimming saws.

      Sanding: Finally, the boards are sanded by a multi-head heavy-duty sander. This step is crucial for 15mm boards as it ensures:

          Precise and consistent thickness (e.g., ensuring all boards are exactly 15mm).

          A flat and smooth surface, providing a perfect substrate for subsequent laminating, painting, or direct use.

7.  Inspection & Packaging

      The finished boards undergo quality inspection (checking thickness, density, modulus of rupture, emission class, etc.).

      Qualified products are packaged and stored.

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 Application Scenarios of 15mm PB