Directing Extruded Filaments

Customer builds air buses. They extrude a fine filament fiber that is used as reinforcement for a laminated composite. The filaments come out of an extruder onto a belt conveyor to cool. At the end of the conveyor they are supposed to gravity feed onto a moving substrate below. The problem is the filaments are clinging to the capstan of the conveyor and not dropping straight down. This causes an interrupted application. Using a Model 112024 24" (610mm) Super Ion Air Knife mounted below the conveyor belt with a directed air flow in the direction the strands should be going, they were able to separate the strands from the capstan. This provided a straight linear application to the substrate below.