Non woven forming

techniques

Wet laid
Similar to the paper making process.
To distinguish nonwovens from papers, a wet laid material
will be defined as a nonwoven if:
More than 50%, by mass, of its fibrous content is
made up of fibers (excluding chemically digested
vegetable fibers) with a length to diameter ratio
greater than 300
If more than 70% of material is woodpulp, then that is a
paper and not a non woven material
Many wet laid nonwovens are made with wood pulp or
other natural fibers blended with synthetic fibers or
fiberglass
Fibres dispersed in water, then lay on a wire mesh to filter
liquid and form web that is transferred to a drying felt
before being heat cured in a continuous process.

 Webs place over one another i.e. wet-laid/ parallel

web, it accounts for 15% of web production,
Used in large scale and economical web that is
less durable
There are three characteristic stages in the
manufacture of nonwoven bonded fabrics by the
wet-laid method
Swelling and dispersion of the fiber in water;
transport of the suspension on a continuous
traveling screen
Continuous web formation on the screen as a
result of filtration
Drying and bonding of the web

Spun laced
The oldest technique for consolidating
fibers in a web is mechanical bonding,
which entangles the fibers to give
strength to the web.
formed when polymer extruded from
spinnerets into filaments then deposited
onto a support before bonding.
High speed jets of water forced through
the fibre web causing fibres to entangle,
when fabric dries up in forms a lace-like
fabric

 The formed web is first compacted and

prewetted to eliminate air pockets and then
water-needled.
The water pressure generally increases
from the first to the last injectors.
Pressures as high as 2200 psi are used to
direct the water jets onto the web.
This pressure is sufficient for most
nonwoven fibers, although higher pressures
are used in specialized applications
The impinging of the water jets on the web
causes the entanglement of fiber

Spun bonded
Spunbond fabrics are produced by depositing
extruded, spun filaments onto a collecting belt in
a uniform random manner followed by bonding
the fibers.
The fibers are separated during the web laying
process by air jets or electrostatic charges.
The collecting surface is usually perforated to
prevent the air stream from deflecting and
carrying the fibers in an uncontrolled manner.
Bonding imparts strength and integrity to the web
by applying heated rolls or hot needles to partially
melt the polymer and fuse the fibers together.

 Spunbonding combines fiber spinning

with web formation by placing the
bonding device in line with spinning.
In some arrangements the web is
bonded in a separate step which, at
first glance, appears to be less
efficient.
However, this arrangement is more
flexible if more than one type of
bonding is applied to the same web

 The spinning process is similar to the

production of continuous filament yarns
and utilizes similar extruder conditions
for a given polymer.
Fibers are formed as the molten
polymer exits the spinnerets and is
quenched by cool air.
The objective of the process is to
produce a wide web and, therefore,
many spinnerets are placed side by side
to generate sufficient fibers across the
total width

Dry laid/Dry formed

fabric is formed by a layer of
oriented or random fibres laid down
by carding or air layering.
Fibres may be cross-laid , longitudinal
laid or or random laying through air
laying of machine disperse fibres

 Inair-laying, the fibres, which can be very

short, are fed into an air stream and from
there to a moving belt or perforated drum,
where they form a randomly oriented web.
Compared with carded webs, airlaid webs
have a lower density, a greater softness
and an absence of laminar structure.
Airlaid webs offer great versatility in terms
of the fibres and fibre blends that can be
used.

Melt blown
Polymers are extruded into filaments, through a
single-extrusion orifice into high velocity heated air
streams that breaks fibres into small pieces before
being deposited onto a support or moving conveyor
belt, fibres are collected as a web and bonded
The MB process is one of the newer and least
developed nonwoven processes.
This process is unique because it is used almost
exclusively to produce microfibers rather than fibers
the size of normal textile fibres
The MB process is similar to the spunbond (SB)
process which converts resins to nonwoven fabrics in
a single integrated process

 Additional bonding, over the fiber adhesion

and fiber entanglement that occurs at lay
down, is employed to alter web
characteristics.
Thermal bonding is the most commonly used
technique.
The bonding can be either overall (area
bonding) or spot (pattern bonding).
Bonding is usually used to increase web
strength and abrasion resistance. As the
bonding level increases, the web becomes
stiffer and less fabric-like

Non woven bonding

Nonwovenwebbondingincludes:
thermal bonding, mechanical bonding,
and chemical bonding.

Chemical bonding include wet and dry

chemical bonding.
Dry chemical bonding is seldom used
because it is difficult to give the composite a
uniform strength