Development of Online Stiffness Sensor for High Speed Sorting of Recovered Paper

Abstract

The objective of this research work is to develop a stiffness sensor that can be used to sort recovered paper on a high speed-moving conveyor. The sensor is one among different sensors in a sensor network that will be used to automate the entire sorting procedure. The stiffness sensor needs to sort the recovered paper samples based on their relative stiffness values. The sensor does not actually measure the stiffness of the samples; instead the amount of deflection of the sample for a given load is used by the sensor to make a decision on the relative stiffness of the sample with respect to the other samples. This is done by creating a lookup table of the deflection values of different kind of samples. The data needed for creating the look up table is obtained from the finite element analysis model of the paper moving on a conveyor. The actual loading and boundary conditions are simulated in the FEA model and a parametric study was done to obtain the deflection values of the paper samples for various values of conveyor speed and pneumatic loads.