Fabric (woven – knitted – or nonwoven textile or cloth – etc.) – Nonwoven fabric – Including an additional nonwoven fabric
Patent
1997-06-04
2000-05-16
Raimund, Christopher
Fabric (woven, knitted, or nonwoven textile or cloth, etc.)
Nonwoven fabric
Including an additional nonwoven fabric
28104, 428105, 428107, 428109, 428113, B32B 506
Patent
active
06063717&
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an improved hydroentangled nonwoven fabric and a method of producing the same. More particularly, the invention relates to a thin and lightweight hydroentangled nonwoven fabric, which is suitable for use in various purposes because it has good lint-free property (free from fluffiness) and improved drape property (cover and well fit to an outer shape). In addition, the nonwoven fabric of the invention has the smoothness and soft texture like those of ordinary cloths and the strength in longitudinal and transverse directions (warp and weft) are balanced.
The method for producing nonwoven fabrics according to the present invention can be carried out easily and rapidly with retaining the high productivity inherent in the web forming process and hydroentangling process (water jet intertwining process).
Moreover, the present invention relates to a thin, lightweight and reinforced hydroentangled nonwoven fabric, which can be widely used as clothing materials such as interlinings, industrial materials such as filters and wipers and disposable medical products such as surgical gowns, bed-sheets, towels and face masks and to the method of producing the same.
BACKGROUND ART
The prior art hydroentangling method involves the process to subject a card web to high pressure fluid jet streams in order to entangle fibers in web and thereby providing specific entangled structure and suitable mechanical properties to the web.
The nonwoven fabrics produced by this hydroentangling process permits higher mobility of fibers within the fabrics than any other textile fabrics and nonwoven fabrics because the fibers are simply mechanically entangled and not firmly bonded together. Therefore, they have soft and lint-free properties together with improved drape and soft touch properties. On the other hand, they possess disadvantages that they lack mechanical strength and dimensional stability due to the absence of firm fiber bonding.
Furthermore, they also possess another disadvantage that their mechanical strengths in the longitudinal and transverse directions are not balanced because continuous lines are formed in the web in the machine direction by the jet streams of high pressure fluid in the manufacturing process. The imbalance of this kind in mechanical strength may be avoided by applying cross-layer process. However, the crossing-over the web and/or laminating process unfavorably brings about the thickening of resultant nonwoven fabrics and adversely affects the productivity.
In order to solve these problems, various methods have been proposed. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 54-82481 discloses a use of nonwoven fabrics made of staple fibers as a reinforcing base material. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 54-101981 and No. 61-225361 disclose the use of woven or knitted fabric or nonwoven fabric as a reinforcing material. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 59-94659 discloses the use of wood pulp as a reinforcing base material. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 01-321960 and No. 04-263660 disclose a process of entangling card web with a reticular base material. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 04-333652 and No. 04-153351 disclose a process of entangling card web with spun-bonded nonwoven fabric.
With these prior art techniques, although it is possible to improve the mechanical strength of hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics made, it is not possible to produce, in an economical and simple manner, a thin, lightweight nonwoven fabric having improved balance in strength while retaining its properties such as softness, lint-freeness, drape property and soft touch feeling which are the characteristics of hydroentangled nonwoven fabric.
The incorporation of a cross-layer process in order to improve the balance in mechanical strength of a nonwoven fabric usually brings about the lowering of productivity in the web formation process to a level of 1/2 to 1/5. In addition, the productivity of subsequent hydroentangling process is also lowered.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5789328 (1998-08-01), Kurihara et al.
Ishiyama Sadayuki
Yamada Jun
Nippon Petrochemicals Company Ltd.
Raimund Christopher
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