Textiles: manufacturing – Textile product fabrication or treatment – Fiber entangling and interlocking
Patent
1996-09-27
1998-02-17
Crowder, C. D.
Textiles: manufacturing
Textile product fabrication or treatment
Fiber entangling and interlocking
28104, 28116, 28122, C04H 502
Patent
active
057180229
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a process for the manufacture of a lightweight nonwoven textile web using the technique known as pressurized "water jets"; the invention also relates to an apparatus for the implementation of this process.
PRIOR ART
In the documents U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,214,819, 3,485,706, 3,508,308 and 4,190,695, a process has been described for the manufacture of nonwoven textile webs in which the cohesion and the mutual interlacing of the using a plurality of high-pressure water jets passing through a moving fabric or web.
In the manner of needles, the water jets at a usual pressure of at least 30 bar, sometimes 100 bar and more, cause the mutual entanglement of the elementary fibers, which gives cohesion to the nonwoven web obtained. These nonwoven webs are known in the literature by the term "spun-lace web" or "spun lace". There is therefore no point in describing this hydroentangling technique in detail here.
This technique essentially consists in first producing a base web formed from natural or man-made elementary fibers or formed by a mixture of these fibers, especially on the carding machine or sliver-lap machine in order to obtain a highly aerated web having a thickness of several centimeters, or even ten centimeters, and weighing only a few tens of grams per square meter, for example one hundred grams for a thickness of 80 mm.
Next, the elementary fibers in this web are entangled by means of an injector rail of contiguous high-pressure (50 to 200 bar) water jets in order to bring the aerated base web to a thickness of about one to several millimeters.
In order to alleviate this drawback, it has been proposed to pass the moving aerated base web over a wetting injector rail or through an immersion tank. However, before subjecting the aerated web to the high-pressure water jets, it is necessary to compress it in order to reduce its volume. Thus, it has been suggested to compress the web by passing it between two rolls. Unfortunately, this means is not very effective, especially because the elasticity of the web which has a tendency to partially revert to its initial volume.
The invention alleviates these drawbacks.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The subject of the invention is a process for the manufacture of a nonwoven textile web using water jets, in which: contiguous high-pressure water jets acting on the base web; and
According to the invention, this process is characterized in that, in a continuous manner: rotary cylindrical drum, inside which a partial vacuum is applied; rotary drum, which both advance substantially at the same speed; said curtain of water penetrating, in succession, the porous support, the compressed web and the perforated drum, so that the excess water is sucked up by the partial vacuum; and of high-pressure water jets onto the wet compressed web obtained.
The invention consists, of continuously, first in positively advancing the base web on an endless porous support, then in compressing the web when it is in place on this porous support using a perforated drum advancing at the same speed as the porous support, and thirdly wetting the compressed web using a curtain of slightly pressurized water acting through the assembly, namely the porous support, the compressed web and the rotary drum, so that the wet compressed web obtained adheres to the periphery, of the perforated rotary drum before undergoing, on this rotating drum, the entangling action of at least one injector rail of contiguous high-pressure water jets.
The dry web coming from the carding machine or silver-lap machine is compressed between a porous support fabric and a perforated rotary cylindrical drum and, after having been wetted beforehand, is subjected to hydroentangling in the wet compressed state on the same drum.
In practice, the vacuum inside the perforated rotary drum is between one hundred and one thousand millimeters of water column; because it has been observed that if this partial vacuum is less than 100 mm of water the web is too wet to be effectively entangle
REFERENCES:
patent: 3214819 (1965-11-01), Guerin
patent: 3485706 (1969-12-01), Evans
patent: 3508308 (1970-04-01), Bunting et al.
patent: 3917785 (1975-11-01), Kalwaites
patent: 4190695 (1980-02-01), Niederhauser
patent: 5098764 (1992-03-01), Drelich et al.
patent: 5136761 (1992-08-01), Sternlieb et al.
patent: 5301401 (1994-04-01), Suzuki et al.
patent: 5414914 (1995-05-01), Suzuki et al.
Crowder C. D.
ICBT Perfojet
Worrell Jr. Larry D.
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