BigPatents India

A belt for use in a papermaking process, such as in a long nip press having a cylindrical press roller and an arcuate pressure shoe which define a nip The belt has a nip load zone which passes through the nip during an operation. The belt comprises a substrate having a coating on at least one surface thereof The substrate is in the form of an endless loop and has a longitudinal or machine direction. The coating has a plurality of grooves running in the machine direction, wherein grooves in a center portion of the nip load zone have at least one of a depth, width, cross-sectional shape, or spacing which is different from that of grooves in outer portions of the nip load zone so as to vary the void volume of the nipe load zone in a cross-machine direction in a desired manner.