Patent ID: 7608164
Filing Date: 2009-10-27
Classification: D21F

Abstract:
1. A method of making a fabric-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet comprising: (a) compactively dewatering a papermaking furnish to form a cellulosic web and concurrently applying the web to a heated rotating backing cylinder; (b) fabric-creping the web from the heated backing cylinder surface at a consistency of from about 30% to about 60% utilizing a patterned creping fabric, the creping step occurring under pressure in a fabric-creping nip defined between the backing cylinder surface and the creping fabric wherein the fabric is traveling at a second speed slower than the speed of said backing cylinder surface, the fabric pattern, nip parameters, velocity delta and web consistency being selected such that the web is creped from the backing cylinder surface and transferred into the creping fabric; (c) providing a hygroscopic, re-wettable resinous adhesive coating composition comprising a polyvinyl alcohol to a surface of a heated drying cylinder of a Yankee dryer at an add-on rate of less than 20 mg/m (d) transferring the web from the creping fabric to the surface of the heated drying cylinder of the Yankee dryer such that the web is adhered to the drying cylinder by the resinous adhesive coating; (e) drying the web on the surface of the drying cylinder; (f) removing the dried web from the drying cylinder surface; and (g) periodically stripping at least a portion of the resinous adhesive coating from the drying cylinder surface as the characteristic operating temperature limit of the drying hood of the Yankee dryer is approached; wherein the furnish and resinous adhesive coating composition are selected and heating of the backing cylinder and drying cylinder is controlled such that a production interval between successive strippings of adhesive coating from the drying cylinder has a duration of at least 4 hours, and during which production interval a predetermined target production rate of dried sheet is met.