New environmentally friendly furniture material - honeycomb composite material

With the rapid development of my country's economy, the demand for wood materials has also increased significantly, mainly in the fields of construction, furniture, packaging and papermaking. According to statistics, in 2003, my country's timber import volume was about 123.16 million m3, and it was still on the rise. In 2003, the import of logs, sawn timber, wood-based panels, wood pulp and paper and cardboard consumed about 13 billion US dollars in foreign exchange, equivalent to more than 100 billion yuan, making it the third largest foreign exchange product after oil and steel. It can be seen that there is a shortage of wood. Since December 1998, the United States, Canada, and the European Union have successively implemented new phytosanitary standards for wood packaging materials for export goods from my country, and require fumigation or high-temperature disinfection, otherwise they will be refused entry. All this means that there is an urgent need to use a new material to partially replace wood materials to alleviate and solve these problems.

The application of honeycomb composite materials was born. It is a new type of material with light weight, high strength and high stiffness. It has the functions of buffering, vibration isolation, heat preservation, heat insulation and sound insulation. It is widely used in the construction industry, vehicle and ship manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, packaging and transportation industries. , replacing wood, clay bricks and high-expanded polystyrene, has high economic value and can be recycled; at the same time, it can save a lot of forest resources, protect and improve the ecological environment, and is a new type of environmental protection that meets the development theme of the 21st century. Material.

1. The origin of honeycomb paper

Scientists have discovered that the hexagonal and hexagonal nests made by bees are a masterpiece, building extremely strong honeycombs with minimal material consumption, and their structures are stronger than any other shape. Because of the arrangement of multiple walls and a series of continuous honeycomb-shaped mesh structures, the external force from all sides can be distributed, so that the resistance of the honeycomb structure to the extrusion force is much higher than that of any circle or square. Scientists' research on the honeycomb structure has enlightened people that even a very thin material can withstand a lot of pressure as long as it is made into a honeycomb shape. It was inspired by the honeycomb that the honeycomb structure material began to appear.

Honeycomb panels are generally divided into two categories: metal and non-metal. Metal honeycomb panels are mainly used in aircraft manufacturing, steam turbine manufacturing, shipbuilding, and transportation industries. Non-metallic honeycomb panels are divided into fibers and paper. Fiber honeycomb panels are mainly used in transportation, interior decoration and furniture industries; paper honeycomb panels are mainly used in packaging, building materials, and furniture industries. The paper honeycomb board used in the packaging industry, namely honeycomb board, is mainly used to make packaging boxes and transportation packaging.

2. Forming theory of honeycomb paper core

The forming principle of the honeycomb paper core can be explained by a simple small test.

First, coat a number of glue lines with pitch (T), width (B), and equal length on one side of a piece of paper along the vertical direction of the length of the paper strip, and the pitch is 4 times the width of the glue line, T= "4B, we also apply the same glue line to another strip of paper, and then dislocate the two strips of paper to form a regular hexagonal honeycomb structure.

As for the dislocation viscose compounding, the glue line of the second paper is accurately glued on the opposite side of the middle position of the distance between the two glue lines of the first paper strip (as shown in Figure 1), when several paper strips are bonded in this way When , the strips of paper are stretched horizontally until uniform, so that several regular hexagons are formed.

When changing the width and pitch of the glue line (T≠4B), the honeycomb will become a honeycomb of other shapes. When the pore size, that is, the diameter of the inscribed circle of the honeycomb, changes, different types of honeycomb paper cores can be obtained. In the actual production process, generally the paper core with large honeycomb aperture is easy to stretch, and the production speed can also be increased, but the strength is low. Generally, in the production of honeycomb trays, honeycomb paper cores of type B (inner diameter of 15mm) and type C (inner diameter of 20mm) are used, and type B (inner diameter of 15mm) is mostly used in furniture.

3. Application Status of Honeycomb Composites

3.1 First use in aerospace

The honeycomb structure material originated from bionics and was first used in the aerospace field. It is an ultra-light composite material developed in response to the special needs of aerospace technology. From the earliest hexagonal aluminum honeycomb core used to manufacture the sandwich structure of aircraft in the 1930s, to the Boeing 747 aircraft of Boeing Company in the 1970s, the first non-metallic honeycomb composite panel was used as the floor of the aircraft. Today, honeycomb composite materials have been It is widely used in aerospace vehicles such as aircraft, rockets and spaceships.

3.2 Application of Honeycomb Composites in Architecture and Furniture

3.2.1 Use in construction

In terms of civil use, honeycomb composite board is a composite board made of thin artificial board, cardboard and recycled paper honeycomb core. It is very suitable for interlayer materials, such as honeycomb composite lightweight walls, and the honeycomb core material only accounts for about 1 to 5% of the solid material. For example, the developed patented product - QD-SXZ honeycomb gypsum board (patent number ZL002164000, won the Shanghai Science and Technology Achievement Award.), is a new type of lightweight, thermal insulation, heat insulation, sound insulation, flame retardant, non-toxic and easy to install Building decoration materials can be widely used in construction, decoration, warehousing, transportation, transportation, agriculture, film and television props and other fields. In the West, honeycomb composite panels have formed a series of specifications in the field of construction, and become an important emerging material with excellent performance, simple and unique structure, and saving resources and energy.

3.2.2 Use on furniture

Promoting the use of honeycomb composite materials in the furniture manufacturing industry will greatly reduce the amount of wood used, and can improve the defects of wood-based panel deformation. Taking a 20mm thick plate as an example, if a 2.5mm MDF is used as a panel to make a honeycomb composite panel, the amount and weight of the material are only about 1/4 of the solid MDF; the cost of the composite panel is only solid About 1/2 of the board, and the composite board has the advantages of light weight, not easy to deform, and convenient transportation. Therefore, in Europe, more than 80% of the interior doors are honeycomb composite doors, and most furniture panels with a thickness of more than 20 mm are honeycomb composite panels.

Honeycomb composite panels are very suitable for panel furniture. For example, it can be used for side panels, panels, top panels, partitions, bottom panels, door panels, partitions and some decorative parts with a thickness of more than 18mm. The thicker the board, the better it can show the superiority of the honeycomb material; the thick board also has good bending resistance, which is used for dining table, coffee table, TV cabinet, etc. There are even furniture manufacturers who use it to manufacture the supporting legs of furniture, which shows the breadth of its application.

At present, in Guangdong alone, more than 200 furniture companies use honeycomb paper cores, and many well-known domestic furniture companies, such as Fuyun, Dixin, Haworth, Homan, Wanlibao, Dynasty, Fuwei, Dalian Haoxingli, Gaofan, Tiancheng, Xinlantian, Fudebao in Zhejiang and Quanyou in Sichuan have all used honeycomb paper cores to make some furniture parts; others also include some IKEA OEM factories. However, compared with the entire furniture industry, there are still very few companies using honeycomb paper cores to produce furniture, and there is still a large market to be developed.

In the Hong Kong market, high-quality honeycomb materials are used to form high-grade panels, and the high-grade furniture made of them is very popular, and users call it "aircraft wood". In the Japanese market, housewives appreciate the lightness of honeycomb furniture, and many Japanese businessmen clearly propose to buy honeycomb furniture.

3.2.3 New technologies applied to furniture

Traditionally, the use of honeycomb panels in furniture manufacturing uses framed honeycomb panels. However, at the Hannover Exhibition in Germany in May 2005, German IMA Ima exhibited the results of many years of development for the first time - lightweight frameless honeycomb panel seals. The edge machine, which makes a new high-efficiency and low-cost lightweight frameless honeycomb panel edge sealing process possible, opens up new ideas, methods and prospects in the use of paper honeycomb materials to manufacture furniture, and it enables honeycomb paper to make furniture. Industrialization, industrialization and automation can be realized.

The manufacturing process of the new lightweight frameless honeycomb panel is an industrialized production process. It adopts the manufacturing process of large board (4′×8′, that is, 1220mm×2440mm), that is, the frameless large-panel honeycomb panel is made first. The specific method is as follows: after two 4'×8' high-density boards with a thickness of 3mm are subjected to cloth glue, the stretched 4'×8' honeycomb paper is sandwiched in the middle. Then, the 4′×8′ three-layer large plate with the assembled embryo is sent to the hot pressing machine for hot pressing. After hot pressing, the electronic cutting saw or the board cutting machine is used for sawing to the required size. This lightweight frameless honeycomb panel has no frame around it. After the frameless honeycomb panel edge banding machine produced by German Yima Company performs edge banding of supporting edge strips and decorative edge strips, furniture panels of various specifications are formed.

The new lightweight frameless honeycomb panel has many advantages compared with the framed honeycomb panel process. The manufacturing process with a frame is complex, largely depends on labor, and the quality is not stable enough due to the accuracy of the frame, and this process is difficult to mass-produce to form an industrialized production scale. The new frameless process can produce the required furniture panels of different specifications in large quantities and mechanized. And this honeycomb board has the same compressive strength and crush resistance as the particle board of the same thickness.

The launch and popular use of new lightweight frameless honeycomb panels in Europe will also have an impact on the Chinese furniture industry. Furniture parts of different thicknesses required in furniture production can be made of light-weight frameless honeycomb panels of different thicknesses by using honeycomb paper of different thicknesses, and then cut into slabs of various sizes required by cutting. Finally, these frameless honeycomb panels are processed by the frameless honeycomb panel edge banding machine of German IMA company, and then furniture parts of various specifications can be obtained. This process not only greatly reduces the weight of the thick plate furniture parts, but also greatly reduces the technological process, so that the manufacturing cost of the thick plate furniture parts is greatly reduced. It is foreseeable that more new lightweight frameless honeycomb panels will appear in the Chinese furniture industry.

3.3 Application in the field of packaging

In the field of packaging, honeycomb cardboard, as a new type of environmentally friendly packaging material with excellent structure and low price, has irreplaceable advantages compared with corrugated cardboard, wood and plastic, and is being used to replace wooden packaging materials and EPS foam plastics Cushioning material. It replaces wood with paper, and one ton of honeycomb cardboard can replace 30 to 50 cubic meters of wood, and the cost is only one-third of that of wood. It specifically applies to:

Cushioning pad. The honeycomb sandwich structure of honeycomb paperboard makes its buffering performance better than that of corrugated paperboard, and can use the form of full buffering or partial buffering to protect the contents.

Pallets and crates. The honeycomb composite trays (cardboards) and honeycomb packing boxes made by it have the characteristics of no fumigation, no disinfection, no need for heat treatment and drying, no need for a fumigation certificate issued by the national animal and plant inspection, and no special inspection and restriction by the customs of the importing and exporting countries. , can be exported with the goods smoothly, is an internationally accepted green product. In addition to the benefits of export exemption, honeycomb pallets and packaging boxes have the characteristics of good cushioning, flat surface, high quality and low price, and their appearance and performance are much better than traditional natural wood pallets, wood packaging boxes and EPS foam. Packaging materials such as inner liner. The full paper pallet can bear 500KG load, and the composite pallet can carry 1000-1500KG heavy objects. It can be used for ordinary flat trays and single-sided trays, and can also be used to make upright tray structures. Like corrugated boxes, honeycomb cardboard can be processed into cartons, but generally only thinner honeycomb cardboards can be used to make cartons.
Accessories such as corner braces, edge guards, etc. Similar to cushion pads, honeycomb paperboard can be used as gussets and edge guards for transport packages, which are especially suitable for collective packaging, which can protect, reduce collision and friction, and reduce damage.
　　At present, honeycomb cardboard is also used to make "hygienic coffins", which are packaged and cremated together. They are mainly supplied to Hong Kong and Shenzhen markets. Now Dalian and other cities have also begun to use "hygienic coffins".

4. Prospect Analysis

In terms of volume, it can be applied to micro-motors as small as electronic products, to large-scale electromechanical products such as aircraft engines; in terms of weight, cellular mobile phones as light as several hundred grams can be applied to automobile parts as large as several tons. It has shown great superiority unmatched by other packaging materials. It is precisely because of the many advantages of honeycomb paperboard, especially the advantages in price and environmental protection, that it is increasingly being encouraged and supported by governments around the world. There has been an encouraging situation in promotion and application, and it has a very broad industrialization. market expectation.

In my country, honeycomb materials have also been increasingly valued and supported by relevant state departments, and have become a hot spot for investment in high-tech in recent years. Among them, the complete set of automatic honeycomb paperboard production equipment was listed in the 1999 "High-tech industries prioritized by the country at present." In April 2000, honeycomb paperboard was identified by the State Planning Commission as the focus of the recent high-tech industrialization of new materials, and its industrialization trend is very clear. Its advantages are reflected in the following aspects:

Honeycomb cardboard is a packaging material that is highly valued and worth promoting. It conforms to the national industrial policy. Packaging is a big consumer of wood, and packaging on behalf of wood is a national industrial policy. It is estimated that the national honeycomb paperboard production capacity in 2000 was about 3 million square meters per year. About 50% of these honeycomb papers are used in building materials (such as door panels), and 50% are used in the production of pallets, packaging boxes and sanitary coffins. In the "Guidance Catalogue for Substituting Wood Packaging for Exported Goods", honeycomb cardboard has become the preferred material for substituting wood. It can not only save wood, but also mainly break the barriers set by the United States, Canada, and the European Union to my country's trade.

　　Honeycomb composite material conforms to the price law. This year, the price of wood has skyrocketed, and all wood-related industries have been affected, such as the furniture industry, paper and packaging industries. In recent years, countries in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia have begun to control the amount of deforestation, resulting in a decrease in exports and an increase in consumer demand instead of decreasing, resulting in rising prices of imported timber. Packing with wood is no longer low cost, and switching to other more economical materials is inevitable. The honeycomb paperboard has a scientific and reasonable structure, low cost, and conforms to the price law.

　　 Honeycomb composites meet the needs of environmental protection and sustainable development. Eliminating white pollution has become an important issue in protecting the environment at present, and EPS cushioning pads, which are widely used in transportation packaging, have become an increasingly serious source of white pollution. "Montreal Protocol" and "Vienna Declaration" (my country are both signatories) stipulate that the goal of eliminating EPS pollution will be achieved in 2005. Honeycomb paperboard has excellent cushioning performance and can be recycled. It is an ideal material to replace EPS, in line with the overall policy of environmental protection and sustainable development.

5. Conclusion

my country's timber resources are poor, but it is a big timber consumer. Saving wood and vigorously developing other environmentally friendly materials to replace wood are particularly important to the sustainable development of my country's economy and environment. However, my country only started to develop honeycomb products in the late 1980s, which is more than 40 years behind foreign countries. In order to narrow the gap with foreign countries, the state should formulate relevant regulations on honeycomb composite materials and their products as soon as possible, introduce preferential policies, invest funds to vigorously support the honeycomb paper industry, and help enterprises to research and produce professional honeycomb paper products suitable for various needs. And support and improve its technical service and promotion system, use the media to vigorously publicize and advocate the superiority of honeycomb paper materials and its various applications, accelerate its promotion and popularization in furniture, construction and packaging, so as to alleviate wood as soon as possible. The lack of resources puts pressure on the national economy.