A system for manufacturing elastic strand nonwoven panels including an unwind module, a lamination module and a folding module. Elastic strand material is fed from cores disposed on the unwind module through rollers towards the lamination module, where the elastic strand material is attached to a nonwoven web to form an elastic strand nonwoven web. At the folding module, the elastic strand nonwoven web is folded over itself by operation of plates underneath which the elastic strand nonwoven web is fed under tension.

The present disclosure relates to methods and apparatuses for monitoring substrates advancing along a converting apparatus in a machine direction. The apparatus may include an analyzer connected with a line scan camera through a communication network. The analyzer may be configured as a field programmable gate array, an application specific integrated circuit, or a graphical processing unit. In addition, the line scan camera may include a linear array of pixel data and define a linear field of view, wherein the line scan camera is arranged such that the linear field of view extends in the machine direction. The apparatus may further include an illumination source that illuminates the linear field of view. In operation, the substrate is advanced in the machine direction such that a portion of the substrate advances through the linear field of view. In turn, the apparatus may be configured to perform various monitoring and/or control functions.

The present disclosure relates to methods and apparatuses for detecting registration features. The apparatuses and methods may utilize sensors in combination with cylindrical optics that blurs the image sampling area in the cross direction, while maintaining focus in the machine direction. The blurring may create an averaging or blending effect of the hue values across the sampled area. The sensors may include red, green, blue (RGB) analog outputs that can characterize sensed registration features by a unique sequence that can be compared with a reference sequence. In turn, the substrate speed and/or tension can be adjusted base on the comparison to control the relative placement of advancing substrates and discrete components in converting lines.

A system for manufacturing elastic strand nonwoven panels including an unwind module, a lamination module and a folding module. Elastic strand material is fed from cores disposed on the unwind module through rollers towards the lamination module, where the elastic strand material is attached to a nonwoven web to form an elastic strand nonwoven web. At the folding module, the elastic strand nonwoven web is folded over itself by operation of plates underneath which the elastic strand nonwoven web is fed under tension.

An assembly and method is provided for scarfing a fibrous material with an assembly that provides automated control of a scarf gap. The assembly includes a moveable mount, a driven scarfing roll coupled to the moveable mount, and a scarfing roll lifting assembly coupled to the moveable mount. A first sensor senses contact between the scarfing roll and an external surface and a second sensor senses position of the scarfing roll when information is received from the first sensor that contact of the scarfing roll with the external surface has occurred. A control unit operates the scarfing roll lifting assembly to position the scarfing roll at a desired scarf gap measured from the contact position. The scarfing roll is positioned based on an identified high point of the external surface, such as the external forming surface of a forming drum.

An assembly and method is provided for scarfing a fibrous material with an assembly that provides automated control of a scarf gap. The assembly includes a moveable mount, a driven scarfing roll coupled to the moveable mount, and a scarfing roll lifting assembly coupled to the moveable mount. A first sensor senses contact between the scarfing roll and an external surface and a second sensor senses position of the scarfing roll when information is received from the first sensor that contact of the scarfing roll with the external surface has occurred. A control unit operates the scarfing roll lifting assembly to position the scarfing roll at a desired scarf gap measured from the contact position. The scarfing roll is positioned based on an identified high point of the external surface, such as the external forming surface of a forming drum.

A method of analysing the quality of a welding area of an absorbent sanitary article is disclosed. During a learning step, a plurality of welding operations are performed both with a sufficient quality and with an insufficient quality, and the welding area generated for each welding operation is monitored via a camera. During a training step, the pixel data of the welding areas monitored during the learning step is processed for training a classifier configured to estimate a welding quality as a function of respective pixel data of a respective welding area. Accordingly, during a normal welding operating step, the welding quality may be estimate via the classifier, thereby improving the environmental sustainability of the production process.