A web is a long, thin, and flexible material. Common webs include
foil
Foil may refer to:
Materials
* Foil (metal), a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine
* Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal
* Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food
* Tin foil, metal foil ma ...
,
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typica ...
,
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
,
textile
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
,
plastic film
Plastic film is a thin continuous polymeric material. Thicker plastic material is often called a "sheet". These thin plastic membranes are used to separate areas or volumes, to hold items, to act as barriers, or as printable surfaces.
Plas ...
, and
wire
Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample diameter 40 mm
A wire is a flexible strand of metal.
Wire is co ...
. Common processes carried out on webs include
coating
A coating is a covering that is applied to the surface of an object, usually referred to as the substrate. The purpose of applying the coating may be decorative, functional, or both. Coatings may be applied as liquids, gases or solids e.g. Powde ...
,
plating
Plating is a surface covering in which a metal is deposited on a conductive surface. Plating has been done for hundreds of years; it is also critical for modern technology. Plating is used to decorate objects, for corrosion inhibition, to improv ...
, and
laminating
Lamination is the technique/process of manufacturing a material in multiple layers, so that the composite material achieves improved strength, stability, sound insulation, appearance, or other properties from the use of the differing materials ...
.
[.]
A web is generally processed by moving over rollers. Between processing stages, webs are stored and transported as rolls also known as coils, packages and doffs. The end result or use of web manufacturing is usually sheets. The primary motivation to work with webs instead of sheets is economics. Webs, being continuous, can be made at far higher speeds and do not have the start-stop issues of discrete sheet processing. The size of the web-handling industries is unknown.
Related processes
*Web processing
Web processing is found in a wide variety of other manufacturing including electronics such as
circuit board
A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich struct ...
s, construction materials such as
roofing, and
pharmaceuticals
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and r ...
such as drug patches.
*Web handling
Web handling refers to the processing of a web through a machine with maximum productivity and minimum waste.
See also
*
Printed electronics
Printed electronics is a set of printing methods used to create electrical devices on various substrates. Printing typically uses common printing equipment suitable for defining patterns on material, such as screen printing, flexography, gravur ...
*
Roll-to-roll
In the field of electronic devices, roll-to-roll processing, also known as web processing, reel-to-reel processing or R2R, is the process of creating electronic devices on a roll of flexible plastic, metal foil, or flexible glass. In other fields ...
*
Tape drives
A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and a long archival stability.
A ...
*Web
offset printing
Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on t ...
*
Roll slitting
Roll slitting is a shearing operation that cuts a large roll of material into narrower rolls. There are two types of slitting: log slitting and rewind slitting. In log slitting the roll of material is treated as a whole (the 'log') and one or m ...
*
Calender
A calender is a series of hard pressure rollers used to finish or smooth a sheet of material such as paper, textiles, rubber, or plastics. Calender rolls are also used to form some types of plastic films and to apply coatings. Some calende ...
References
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Industrial processes
Fabrication (metal)