Textiles: manufacturing – Textile product fabrication or treatment – Of thread interlaced article or fabric
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-31
2003-08-19
Vanatta, Amy B. (Department: 3765)
Textiles: manufacturing
Textile product fabrication or treatment
Of thread interlaced article or fabric
C028S163000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06606771
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates generally to a method of imaging a woven textile fabric, and more particularly to a method of hydraulically imaging a woven textile fabric on a three-dimensional image transfer device, whereby a regular pattern defined by the image transfer device is imparted to the woven fabric.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Woven textile fabrics, of which include a plurality of interwoven warp and weft yams, are used for all manner of applications, including apparel, home furnishings, recreational products, and industrial applications. In regards to these applications, it has become desirable to impart a visual or other patterned effect on some types of fabrics. The application of an image onto a fabric may have aesthetic as well as functional benefits.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,967,456 and 4,995,151, hereby incorporated by reference, disclose techniques for hydro-enhancing and hydro-patterning fabric. Practice of hydro-enhancing and hydro-patterning techniques requires the use of a woven screen. The woven screen may be embossed with the desired three-dimensional pattern, which is then used as the foraminous surface against which woven fabrics are treated with hydraulic energy. The use of mesh screens however, has an inherent and deleterious flaw, which precludes the acceptable treatment on continuous yardages of woven material. In order to form a woven screen to be used to treat continuous yardage of material, the screen must be linked at its terminal edges, thus forming a loop or belt. Where the terminal ends of the mesh screen meet to form the loop, there are a plurality of wire ends, which must be adjoined. A seam is formed across the length of the formed loop.
FIG. 1
depicts such a seam from a woven, mesh screen. This seam becomes part of the overall three-dimensional pattern and creates a repeating defect in the course of treatment of continuous yardage, such a defect is undesirable in a commercial process.
Typically, manufacture of nonwoven fabrics entails creating a web or batt of fibrous and filamentary material, and treating the web in a manner to provide the resultant fabric with the desired physical properties. One manner of making nonwoven fabrics, which has met with widespread commercial success involves hydraulically treating the fabric with high-pressure liquid (water) streams, which act to entangle and integrate the fibrous material. Such hydroentangling techniques are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,485,706, to Evans, hereby incorporated by reference. More recently, hydroentangling techniques have been developed for nonwovens fabrics whereby patterning and imaging of the fabric can be effected as the fabric is hydraulically formed on a three-dimensional image transfer device. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,098,764, 5,244,711, 5,822,823, and 5,827,597, the disclosures of which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference, relate to the use of such three-dimensional image transfer devices.
Applying this image transfer method to wovens would allow for the production of continuous yardage without the shortcoming of the repeating defect left by a seam from the woven screen. The present invention contemplates a method of applying hydraulic energy in conjunction with a three-dimensional transfer device, whereby a specific and desirable pattern defined by the image transfer device is durably imparted to the woven fabric. The use of a three-dimensional image transfer device is necessary to facilitate the efficient and commercially viable use of the method.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present method of imaging a woven textile fabric having a plurality of interwoven warp and weft yarns, preferably comprising cellulosic fibers, contemplates that a three-dimensional image transfer device be provided. The image transfer device has a foraminous, image-forming surface comprising a regular or irregular pattern of three-dimensional surface elements. As a result of the way the image transfer device is made, it does not have any seams that can be imparted to the fabric. In addition, the surface topography and the drainage topology can be controlled to a very high degree.
The woven textile fabric is positioned on the image transfer device, and hydraulic imaging of the fabric effected by subjecting the fabric to pressurized liquid streams applied to a surface of the fabric facing away from the image transfer device. By the action of the high-pressure liquid stream, the regular pattern defined by the image-forming surface of the image transfer device is imparted to the woven fabric.
The pattern imparted to the fabric may include an image which results from rearrangement and displacement of the fabric yarns, which can impart a three-dimensionality to the fabric, as well as patterning which results from differential washing of dyes or color from the fabric which corresponds to the pattern of the image transfer device.
The present method has been practiced for imparting an image to denim fabrics comprising cotton cellulosic fibers. As will be appreciated, the technique can be employed for imparting an image to a wide variety of textile fabrics. Standard, low cost textile products can be transformed into high value, three-dimensional fabrics suitable for many apparel, home furnishing, upholstery, and other applications. A fabric which is otherwise substantially uniform in appearance can be provided with an aesthetically pleasing pattern, reflecting the three-dimensionality of the fabric and/or color variations therein.
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Curtis Charles Keith
Daniels Kenneth
Goodson Kay
Polymer Group Inc.
Vanatta Amy B.
Wood, Philips, Katz Clark & Mortimer
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