The production of OSB boards mainly includes steps such as raw material preparation, chip preparation, drying, gluing, laying and shaping, hot pressing, cooling and cutting
1. Raw materials
Choose the fast growing softwood and peel off its barks, and cut it to be suitable length
2. Wood strands
The wood segments are fed into a ring slicer or a drum slicer to be sliced into thin sheets that are 50-150mm in length, 10-30mm in width and 0.3-0.8mm in thickness
3. Screening
Through vibrating screens to make the overly fine or overly large flakes are removed to ensure uniform size
4. Drying
Drum dryers or air flow dryers are used to remove the moisture from the flakes (reducing the moisture content from 30-50% to 2-4%). The drying temperature is usually 150-250℃ to avoid high temperature causing the wood to char. The drying system should be equipped with spark detection and fire extinguishing devices to prevent wood chip and dust explosions
5. Glue applying
The planed pieces are evenly mixed with adhesive (UF, PF, MDF and others) and water repellent (paraffin) in a mixer, with the adhesive amount typically being 3-8% (based on the weight of the dry planed pieces).
6. Mat forming
Directional laying: Surface shavings: Arranged along the length of the board (longitudinally) to enhance the bending strength; Core shavings: Arranged horizontally or randomly to enhance stability. The Mat former has two popular types one is Mechnical mat former, another is Air flow mat former.
7. Continuous Pre-press
The formed slab will be inicially compressed and remove inside air bubble
8. Hot press
Pressing the OSB panel by high temperature and high pressure, to make inside resin curing and the board be strong.
Now as the Production capacity and panel quality requires, there are two types Hot press, one is Traditional Multi-opening Hot press, another one is High technology Continuous Flat Press.
9. Cooling and Edge trimming
The temperature of the hot-pressed sheet is high (~100℃), and it needs to be cooled down to below 40℃ through a cooling flip plate frame to prevent deformation.
Then Use a Edge sawing machine to cut off the irregular edges to standardize the size of the board (common size: 1220×2440mm)
Then check its quality and packed OSB., The whole production process finish.