Basics of
NON-WOVEN PROCESS
GOPALAKRISHNAN DURAISAMY
What is non woven fabric?
• Nonwoven are mainly planar structures.
• This is a young branch of the textile industry
relatively other branches.
• Nonwoven fabrics are flexible, porous
products consisting of one or more fibre
layers.
• In nonwoven fabric the fibres may either
preferentially oriented in one direction or may
be deposited in a random manner.
• They are bonded by chemical, thermal or
mechanical processes into textile products.
Classification of Non-woven fabrics
Disposable/non durable
• Disposable or nondurable non-woven include
such one-time use products as diapers, medical
dressings, household wipes, and disposable
protective clothing.
Durable Goods
• Durable goods are used for apparel interfacing,
automobile headliners, road under layments,
and carpets.
Manufacturing Process of nonwoven
Raw Materials of nonwoven fabric
Polyester is the most frequently used fibre in
the United States.
Olefin is used for their strength,
Cotton and rayon are used for absorbency.
Acrylic, acetate are also being used.
WEB FORMATION
Tasks of the web-laying machine
• Increasing the web mass
• Increasing the web width
• Determining the web strength in the length
and cross directions
• Improving the end product quality
Orientation of fibres in web
The orientation of fibres in web can be in four
directions;
A. Parallel laid
B. Cross laid
C. Crisscross laid
D. Random laid
Parallel-laid webs
• In the parallel-laid webs, the fibres are laid in a
lengthwise orientation.
• This implies that this type of web has greater
strength in the lengthwise direction than the
transverse direction.
• According to the demand of mass and fibre type,
the parallel-laid web permits the repetition of
fibrous webs.
• The number of layers in the web decides the
number of cards required.
Cross-laid webs
• Cross-laid webs are generally made by cross lapper
which takes the web from the card at a specific rate.
• The cross-laid web is laid in several layers with an
oscillator carriage on a take-off belt by means of a
conveyor belt arrangement.
• Here the take-off belt moves at right angles to the
carriage discretion.
The cross-laid web has major two purposes:
• To achieve a desired fabric weight,
• Achieve random orientation of fibre, in the web, for
incorporating better strength.
Random-laid
• Random Fibre orientation in the web is
achieved by incorporating randomizing rolls in
the card.
• Random rolls are generally located between
the main cylinder & doffer.
• The configuration, diameter, & position of the
randomizing rolls are different for the different
manufacturer.
Carded nonwoven fabrics characteristics
• Unique physical properties i.e., elongation in
the X, Y & Z direction for moldable
applications
• Ability to attach layers of different type of
fiber webs to produce composites
• High opacity per unit area
• High strength makes them overwhelming
choice for geo-textiles fabric
PIC A-dry laying: Web forming by carding. Fibers from the bale are comb by the fine wires and
teeth into the parallel arrays.
PIC B –air laying: Fibers from opened bales are suspended in air and then collected on a screen.
PIC C-wet laying: Fibers are uniformly suspended in the water and collected to form a sheet by
filtering it onto the screen.
Air laid process
• Air laid process is nonwoven web forming
process in which the web of fibres is produced
by the dispersion of fibres ranging from 1-4 mm.
• Initially, the fibres are dispersed into a fast
moving air stream and then transported
towards the moving belt or perforated drum
under pressure or vacuum.
• Finally, the fibres condense on the surface of
moving belt or drum in order to create web
Air laid web formation
• This process is also employed for
opening, cleaning, removing short
fibres.
• Fibres are deposited on a moving
forming screen or rotating perforated
cylinder in random orientated manner.
• This process is used to produce
lightweight and heavy high loft
nonwovens.
• This is used to fabricate the composites
in easy manner.
• This process is very helpful to produce
various densities such as very low and
very high with diverse materials.
• By this process, stiffness and softness is
easily controllable, but capital cost of
this process is high.
Wet laid process
• In this process, the fibres to be utilized are
blended with water to form water /fibre
slurry.
• Then, the slurry is deposited on the forming
belt.
• Finally, the excess water is removed from fibre
to produce uniform sheet (web). With due
course of further processing, sheets are
bonded and dried.
Wet laid web formation
• It is modified version of papermaking
process.
• It is used to produce structures with
textile-fabric characteristics, primarily
flexibility and strength.
• In the roll, good industry 5-10%
nonwoven is made by wet laid process.
• This process offer high production rate
(up to 1000 m/min).
• Any natural or synthetic long fibre can
be used, Cotton linters, manila hemp
and cellulose staple fibre are frequently
used fibre in wet laid process.
Spun laid web
This particular procedure which is also called spun
bond web technique is carried out in two stages;
(i) melting of polymer granules and extrusion of
molten polymer via extrusion technique for
generation of polymer strands; subsequently,
strands are drawn by cold or hot drawing to get
continuous fibre, and
(ii) deposition of the resultant continuous fibres on a
conveyor in order to obtain uniform web. The
nonwoven fabrics produced by this technique
offers greater strength and less flexibility
Spun laid web formation
• These types of web are new class of
web, which properties of web is
found in between paper and woven
fabrics.
• The weight of webs increase with
increasing the number of layers.
• Web thicknesses are in the range
0.2-1.5 mm.
• These types web show High strength-
to-weight ratios compared to other
nonwoven, woven, and knitted
structures.
• These webs offer High tear strength.
• This process is applied for getting
nonwovens with greater strength,
lightweight and flexible, but raw
material flexibility is more limited.
Melt blown web
• In melt blown web forming process, polymer granules
which are low viscous in nature and molten polymer
granules are drawn by a high velocity air stream
through nozzle tip (extruder die).
• The drawing polymer is performed by drag force of air
stream and gets converted into microfibres.
• The fine fibres formed are then solidified on the
collector as web.
• The air temperature is fixed equal or slightly higher
than the melting point of the polymer.
Melt blown web formation
Random fibre orientation, lower to moderate web strength,
fine fibre diameter, high surface area for good insulation and
filtration are main characteristics of melt blow web, Isotropic
products are obtained through the melt blow process.
BONDING TECHNIQUES
Chemical bonding
Chemical bonding is otherwise called to be
adhesion bonding.
This type of bonding involves powdered
adhesives, foam and organic solvent solutions,
polymer and copolymer based binders such as
styrene/butadiene as well as vinyl acetate
ethylene copolymers as the most commonly
used bonding agents for creation of web.
Chemical bonding
Nonwoven fabric with latex binder
Thermal bonding
• Thermal bonding is otherwise termed as cohesion
bonding.
• This type of bonding is completed under the
application of heat.
• The two sub categories include (i) calendaring and (ii)
air thermal bonding.
• This classification is based on the difference in melting
point of matrix web materials.
• Temperature is applied to fuse the matrix web fibres.
• Hence, formation of bonding occurs between
reinforced web and matrix web.
Thermal bonding
Needle punching
• This process is applicable for wide range of
fibre types. For entanglement of fibres,
needles with special design are used. Such
needles are subjected to continuous pushing
and pulling process for production of
entangled fibres.
Hydro-entanglement
This process is particularly suitable for webs
created by carding or wet laid process.
Jets containing water at high pressure are used for
mechanical entanglement of fibres.
High pressure jets are found to have direct impact
on the creation of web.
Conclusion
• As conclusion, there is lot of development in nonwoven
area.
• For example is an innovation about the additives from
mineral sources that will be apply in nonwoven
production.
• There is a need for more study of the economic factors
related to the manufacture of nonwovens.
• Regarding increased usage of nonwovens, it seems that
the prospects are quite positive, especially in their
expanded use in the disposable and flushable technical
market segments.
