Que sera, sera (Doris Day’s movie theme song) was a new trend in modeling. What Dr. Keith Good meant is that one can now model problems in web handling with far fewer (boundary condition) assumptions. This is now possible with explicit nonlinear FEM (Finite Element Modeling) using ABAQUS. Problems solved and reported on included web stresses around a concave spreader and with misaligned rollers and with imperfect webs. Unfortunately, these problems take a couple of days of computation time on a multi-core computer workstation.
Wrinkling, especially on misaligned rollers, was a major topic area of this conference. Here theory and measurement are in good agreement over a wide variety of materials ranging from soft film to stiff foils. A heated discussion followed on tolerances achievable with certain instruments and tolerances required to avoid wrinkling.
My favorite paper was given by Neil Michal of Kimberly-Clark on Analysis of Web Wrinkling in Accumulators, though best papers were actually awarded to Kevin Cole and Jerry Brown. My paper was A Century of Web Handling Literature where I offered copies of the Roisum Library, a card catalogue of some 3,500 articles, books, columns, papers and so on in web handling and related areas.
The Web Handling Research Center (WHRC) held its 11th biennial International Conference on Web Handling in Stillwater Oklahoma. About 25 papers were given to about 50 attendees from around the world, so the conference is holding its own better more than most during the Great Recession. You can find a listing of papers on their website.