Obviously the caliper (or ‘thickness’) of a wire is an indicator for a fabric’s remaining life potential. But that’s not all.
- due to wear, the shape of the drainage channels changes and hence so does the dewatering behavior
- when a fabric is wearing very fast, wear burrs can block the drainage of the fabric
- increasing seam markings in the sheet are an indication of fabric wear
- wear streaks, for example close to the edges, lead to non-uniform paper properties like through sight and cloudiness
NOTE: forming fabrics are designed to wear on the machine side, as shown underneath. Often a 0.05 mm caliper reduction on the machine side of the fabric is acceptable, whereas the same value on the paper side could cause a big problem.
A visual inspection during a machine stop gives this additional information.
Feltest Product for measuring fabric caliper: