Patent ID: 7891276
Filing Date: 2011-02-22
Classification: A61F,B65H,Y10S,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A web handling system for controlling the length of a discrete segment of a continuous web of elastic material, said continuous web initially being on a wound roll of said web, said web handling system comprising: a processing station operable to process at least one discrete segment of the continuous web; a delivery system operable to unwind the continuous web from the wound roll and deliver the continuous web in a machine direction of said web handling system from said wound roll to said processing station, the delivery system being operable to maintain the continuous web in tension while being delivered from the wound roll to the processing station; a wound off tension monitoring system for monitoring the wound off tension in the continuous web as the web is unwound from said wound roll; and a control system in communication with the delivery system, the processing station and the wound off tension monitoring system, said control system being operable to predict a recovered length of the discrete segment at a time t after the discrete segment leaves the processing station, said control system being responsive to said predicted recovered length of the discrete segment at said time t to control operation of the delivery system and the processing station so as to control an actual recovered length of the discrete segment at said time t after the discrete segment leaves the processing station.