Web Tension Estimation by Local Contact Force Measurement in Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing

Web tension and its distribution are key factors in the operation of web systems, the roll to roll (R2R) manufacturing of flexible electronics brings even higher requirements for it. To effectively get the web tension at any position on the R2R process line, a new web tension estimation method by measuring the local contact force is investigated in this paper, which can not only estimate the web tension, but also the web tension distribution. This study attempts to derive the approximate fitting formula between the local contact force and the web tension. Firstly, the schematic of web tension estimation method by local contact force measurement is presented; Then the mass spring model is used to derive the governing equations, which is discretized and solved by Improved Euler method. And approximate fitting formula of the local contact force with tension is derived based on the numerical results. Finally, to validate the fitting formula, the experiments are carried out to detect the local contact force and estimate both the web tension and its distribution.