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Topic 4 - Pulp Suspensions

Characterizing a pulp suspension

A pulp suspension is made up of individual pulp fibres and pieces of pulp

fibres. Sometimes they have clays, starches and other chemical additives
that are mixed in just before papermaking.

Pulp fibres are individual wood cells that are typically 0.5-4 mm in length
and 20 to 40 microns in diameter. The wall thickness is anywhere from 2 to
8 microns.

(a) (b) (c)

Photomicrograph of cross section of a (a) tree, (b) different types of fibres

and (c) a photomicrograph of individual mechanical pulp fibres.

The most common three parameters that are used to describe a pulp
suspension is:
a) The mass concentration or consistency
b) The mean fibre length
c) The mean coarseness (the mass per unit length)

Fibres are polydisperse. That is, they have a wide length distribution, width
and coarseness distribution. An example of the average fibre length
distribution for a softwood kraft pulp is shown below.
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Normalized Fraction
0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00
0 1 2 3 4 5
Length (mm)
Fibre Length Distribution (pink line).

Another important description of the pulp is its coarseness.

The coarseness, w, of the fibre is defined as the mass, M per unit length, L,
i.e,

M
w=
L
The lower the coarseness:
1. The more fibres per gram of pulp
2. The thinner the cell wall and and/or diameter is.
3. The more area is available for bonding in paper
4. The stronger the paper.

Some typical values for length and coarseness are given below:
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Species Length Coarseness

mm mg/100m
Black Spruce 3.5 17
Douglas Fir 3.9 28
Red Cedar 3.5 16
Southern Pine 4.6 25
Eucalyptus 0.9 12

Note: Hardwood fibres are much shorter and less coarse than

Pulp suspensions may be created with varying concentrations of fibres

The concentration may be expressed in terms of either a volumetric

concentration, Cv, or a mass concentration, Cm (also called the
consistency), of fibres in water

Consistency is calculated as

Dry Weight of Sample

Consistency = 100%
Wet Weight of Sample

Typical ranges found in pulping and papermaking are,

15-30% High Consistency Mechanical pulping, reject refining,

bleaching, storage

5-15% Medium Consistency Cooking, bleaching, storage, repulping

1-5% Low Consistency Stock prep, cleaning, screening, beating
(thin stock) blending
0.1-1.0% Very Low Headbox, whitewater flotation de-inking
Consistency
0.01-0.1% Ultra Low Clarifier, clear white water
Consistency

A better way to describe the effective rheological concentration is the

crowding number, N, which is effectively the number of fibres swept out in
a sphere of diameter equal to the average fibre length.
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What is N in terms of Cv and L/D?

2
2 ⎛L⎞
N = Cv ⎜ ⎟
3 ⎝D⎠

One may also show that in terms of mass consistency,

π Cm L2
N=
6w

where w is the “fibre coarseness” in kg/m

The crowding number can be interpreted in terms of fibre contact

probability, that is:

N < 1 fibres will only have chance contact

1<N<60 fibres will have forced collisions in shear
N>60 the fibres are in continuous contact

Suspension behaviour

The behaviour of the suspension will change dramatically with crowding

number.

Because of their large L/D ratio (and partially owing to their flexibility), fibres
tend to cluster together to form flocs, which are typically a few millimeters
long

Flocs are a problem in papermaking because they show up as mass

distribution variations in the paper. Take a piece of paper and hold it to the
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light … you will be able to see these flocs/mass variations as darkness

variations.

These flocs, once formed, are difficult to pull apart

What holds the flocs together are inter-fibre forces

These inter-fibre forces may take two forms: chemical and mechanical

Various chemical compounds are added to pulp suspension to reduce their

tendency to flocculate

In addition to chemical forces, mechanical forces are also a major

contributor to flocculation

Such forces are always present in fibre suspensions. The nature of the
force may differ as shown in the figure on the following page: (a) hooking of
long fibres; (b) hooking of fibrillated surfaces; (c) frictional forces caused by
normal forces

The latter friction forces are of particular importance because they give
fibre networks substantial strength. The friction comes from normal forces
resulting from fibre bending. This normal force arises when fibres are
locked into a bent mode in the network, which itself occurs when fibre
suspensions are sheared

Even after the cessation of shearing, the inter-fibre forces maintain the
integrity of the flocs

A key requirement for this type of force to exist is three-point alternate

contact between fibres
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Depending on the value of N, the pulp suspension is either more or less

flocculated. In general, for N<1 the suspension consists almost solely of
individual fibres (assuming it hasn’t been previously flocculated). For N>5
the pulp suspension tends to be flocculated
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As a result of the flocculation (inter-fibre forces), it takes a certain amount

of shearing force to get a pulp suspension moving at all

SBK= Softwood Bleached Kraft

SGW=Softwood Ground Wood
TMP=Thermomechanical Pulp
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In other words, the pulp suspension acts like a non-Newtonian fluid with a
finite yield stress (like a Bingham plastic). This yield stress is a function of
the consistency and the type of pulp tested

Pulp suspension can only flow once this shear stress is exceeded in the
suspension

Once the suspension starts to flow, the flow can be in the form of flocs
slipping past flocs, or individual fibres slipping past one another

The shear stress required to get pulp suspension to flow is generally higher
than would be attained in laminar flow, so industrially it is only sensible to
speak of turbulent pulp flow

Shear levels in turbulent flow of fibre suspensions are very difficult to

quantify.

One of the most useful quantitative parameters we have for accomplishing

this is the power dissipation per unit volume, εF

This is a useful parameter because, as we know from our discussion of the

Kolmogorov scale, turbulent energy in a fluid cascades down into smaller
eddies and ultimately dissipates as heat

The level of energy dissipation directly reflects the turbulent shear of the
small scale eddies. This shear causes fibre level fluidization

Several workers have measured power dissipation per unit volume required
to cause fibre suspension fluidization

This measurement is not precise because strong gradients of shear exist in

any practical vessel used to measure fluidization, and definitions of
fluidization have been imprecise i.e. floc level or fibre level. Some values
are given on the following page
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Note that the above equation for εF requires that Cm be given in percent
and εF is in W/m3
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Owing to the finite yield stress of pulp suspension, for pulp flow in pipes, as
the velocity in pulp suspension flow increases, the flow passes through 3
flow regimes: plug flow, mixed flow, and turbulent flow. The existence of
multiple flow regimes is typical of all multiphase flows

In the plug flow regime the pulp suspension flows as a solid, with pulp
fibres scraping along the pipe wall

As the flow velocity increases fibres migrate from the wall, creating a clear
water annulus between the plug and the wall

As the velocity of flow is increased, the pulp shear becomes sufficiently

great near the wall that that portion of the pulp becomes fluidized. The flow
regime is then mixed flow.

The central core of the pipe still flows as a plug, but an annulus near the
wall consists of a turbulent mixture of water and fibre

Finally, at very high velocities the shear stress everywhere in the fluid is
high enough to break flocs, and the resulting flow regime is turbulent.
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In turbulent flow with a relatively low consistency of pulp another peculiar

fluid dynamic phenomena occurs. The pressure drop required to achieve a
given flow rate is less for the pulp suspension than that of just water. This
is called turbulent drag reduction.

First discovered when Toms discovered that Napalm (polymer and

gasoline) was easier to pump than Gasoline.

The fundamental reason for turbulent drag reduction is still not fully
understood. However, it is also observed in linear polymer suspensions
and is an excellent research area in turbulent particle suspension.

These different flow regimes, coupled with turbulent drag reduction lead to
very peculiar system curves. For a simple pipe flow with no elevation
change our system curve is:

Vw

hl

Vmax

The above friction loss behaviour gives a pumping “system curve” that may
have three intersection points with a typical pump curve. This makes pump
selection difficult
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Some past design correlations merely used extrapolations of the first part
of the loss curve, resulting in significantly over-designed pumps. A modern
means of sizing pumps is the Tappi TIS 410-14 procedure, shown on the
following page
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Example,

This example looks at how to ‘estimate’ the head loss in pulp pipe flow
Remember the Energy Balance in one dimension (for example, MECH 280,
White Ch. 3.6)

⎛ P V2 ⎞ ⎛ P V2 ⎞
⎜ + + z⎟ = ⎜ + + z ⎟ + h friction − hpump + hturbine
⎝ ρ g 2 g ⎠in ⎝ ρ g 2 g ⎠out
h = head loss/gain (in units of meters)

Tank A contains 1% (Cm) consistency softwood, kraft pulp at 725 CSF at

35 degrees C. The tank is full to a height of 10m. It is draining through a
100mm diameter smooth stainless steel pipe into a second tank B. The
height of the pulp in Tank B is 2m and both are open to the atmosphere. If
the mean velocity of the pulp in the pipe is 1 m/s and you neglect minor
losses, how long is the pipe connecting the two tanks?

Tank A
1%
SWK
Pulp
10m Tank B

100 mm
2m