Dispensing chopped reinforcement strand using oriented dispensing nozzles

摘要

A method of dispensing reinforcement strands including establishing multiple streams of reinforcement strands (19), and chopping the multiple streams of reinforcement strands into multiple currents of discrete reinforcement fibers (65). Each current of the discrete reinforcement fibers is directed into a dispensing nozzle (66) so that the discrete reinforcement fibers travel along a path extending generally along a longitudinal axis (68) of the nozzle. The nozzles are oriented so that the axes of each of the nozzles converge with respect to each other. A flow of the discrete length reinforcement fibers (70) is dispensed from each of the nozzles onto a collecting surface (16).