CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Nonwoven Materials

There are many different kinds of materials which are really a part of our lives and we are ignorant of what they are called and their properties. Nonwoven materials are one of this kind. Although there are different kinds o definitions (Albrecht, 2003, Purdy, 1983, Truelove & Nordgren, 1981) we can accept nonwovens as a kind of low- textiles in which fibres are bonded together by various methods. A sample image of a typical nonwoven is shown in Figure 1.1. The main difference between nonwovens and wovens arises from the fact that the yarn spinning stage is omitted in the nonwoven processing of staple fibres, while bonding of the web is accomplished by various methods such as chemical, mechanical or thermal instead of weaving and knitting in traditional textiles. Nonwoven industry as we know it today has grown from developments in the textile, paper and polymer processing industries. Today, there are also inputs from other industries including most branches of engineering as well as the natural sciences (Albrecht, 2003, Russell, 2007). Their biggest advantage of nonwovens is their low cost and flexibility of usage according to different areas. They provide high strength with a very soft structure. They are usually liquid repellent and can be used as a filtration media because of their porous structure. There are many types of nonwovens that require various production techniques which will be discussed later. The annual production of nonwovens in the world is shown in Table 1.1. Nonwovens are produced in two main stages. First a fibrous web is formed which is called the web formation process and then the fibres in this web are attached to each other which is called the bonding process. Web formation process is divided into categories such as dry laying, wet laying and polymer laying. Bonding processes are divided mainly as thermal, chemical, needle punch, stich and hydroentanglement bonding. Current research is related with dry-laid, thermally bonded nonwovens. Thus detailed information is given for these nonwovens only.

Figure 1.1. An sample image of a nonwoven bonded thermally

Table 1.1. Worldwide Nonwoven Production (Pourdeyhimi 2004)

Region North America Western Europe Asia Pacific Japan South America Middle East Rest of the World

Production, 2003 (m.tons) 1.2 1.1 0.64 0.34 0.24 0.17 0.16

Share (%) 30 30 17 8 6 5 4

1.2

Thermally Bonded Nonwovens

1.2.1 Manufacturing
Thermally bonded nonwovens are manufactured by two major methods: Through air bonding and calendaring. In through-air bonding process, a hot fluid, air, is forced through a preformed web. If the temperature of the fluid is high enough, the fibres may partially melt. In this case, they form bonds where two or more fibres come into contact. The thermally bonded nonwoven in this research is manufactured by calendaring method in which the combination of web formation and thermal bonding process feeds the formed web to the calendar where it is condensed in the roller gap between two driven and heated rollers and melted at the contact points within a very short period (Figure 1.2). The use of a heated engraved roller and a smooth roller causes cohesive bonding of the web at the positive engraving points (Figure 1.3).The fibres are plastified and bonded with each other at the bonding points (Figure 1.4). The resulting bonded nonwoven is cut to the desired final width and wound up Bonding temperature web speed

Figure 1.2. Nonwoven calendaring process (EDANA, 2007)

Figure 1.3. Engraved and smooth rollers (Russell, 2007)

(a)

(b) Figure 1.4. Bond points shown in SEM image (a) Bond points in a web (b) Detailed sight (Hou et al., 2009) Thermal bonding is one of the most widely used bonding technologies in the nonwovens industry. Considerable effort has been spent on trying to optimize the web-formation processes, bonding processes, and the fibre properties to achieve the desired end-use properties while reducing the cost of manufacture (Wang & Michielsen, 2001). Among these, the effects of compression pressure and temperature are discussed here as they are key factors in determining the mechanical properties. These effects are beyond the concept of the study but some of the previous efforts are shown to reflect the importance of those effects on the structural behaviour of nonwovens.

1.2.2 Compression pressure

Sufficient pressure is needed to compact the web (decrease the thickness) so that efficient heat transfer through conduction can take place. In addition, pressure aids plastic flow at elevated temperatures, thereby increasing contact area between the fibres as well as decreasing thickness at the bond even further. Pressure also aids wetting of the surfaces by melt from the neighbourhood of the bond-point. This requires fairly minimal pressures. Pressure also constrains the mobility of the fibres in the bond spot. Over the range of pressures commercially employed, higher nip pressures do not necessarily lead to higher performance. In calendar bonding, the bonding pressure appears to have little or no effect on fabric performance beyond a certain minimum (Figure 1.5). This is especially true for thin nonwovens where minimal pressure is required at the nip to bring about fiber-to-fiber contact.

Figure 1.5. Mechanical properties in different angular directions as a function of nip pressure (Michielsen et al., 2005)