DEPARTMENT OF TEXTILE ENGINEERING

Course Code : Tex-3013 Course Title :Fabric Manufacturing

Technology-||

Assignment on
Processes involved in Nonwoven production

Submitted To : Mumtahina Riza

(Leacturer, DTE, SEU)

Submitted By :
Name : Nakib Ibna Bashar
ID : 2018000400097
Batch : 37
Sec :2
Submission Date : 06/06/2020
Introduction
Nonwoven fabrics are broadly defined as sheet or web structures bonded together by
entangling fiber or filaments (and by perforating films) mechanically, thermally, or chemically.
They are flat, porous sheets that are made directly from separate fibers or from molten plastic
or plastic film. They are not made by weaving or knitting and do not require converting the
fibers to yarn. Non-wovens are flexible, porous, products consisting of one or more fibre layers.
The separate fibres may either be 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.

Characteristics of Non-Woven fabric:

 Absorbency  Bacterial barrier

 Cushioning  Filtering

 Flame retardancy  Liquid repellency

 Resilience  Softness

 Sterility  Strength

 Stretch  Wash ability

Fibers used to produced Non-Woven fabric:

Natural and Renewable Fibers Man-made Fibers

cotton Polyester

Viscose Polypropylene

Lyocell Bicomponent Fibers

Polyactide Recycled Fibers

Nonwoven production stages

The production of nonwovens can be described in three stages, although modern technology
allows an overlapping of some stages, and in some cases all three stages can take place at the
same. That three unavoidable main stages are:

1) Web formation

a) Fiber to Fabric (Ex: Carded, Air Laid, Wet Laid)

b) Polymer to fabric (Ex: Spun Bond, Melt Blown, SMS)

2) Web bonding

3) Finishing Treatments

Types of Non-Woven manufacturing process:

According to process Non-Woven are classified as bellow

1. Spunbond Process

2. Melt blown process

3. Water jet Process

4. Needle punched 
 Spunbond process:

 Melt blown process

 Water jet process

  Needle punched process

Briefly describe Melt blown process for production of Non-Woven fabric

The melt blown process is a unique among nonwoven systems. Fundamentally it is a

high tech version of the making of cotton candy at amusement parks. In making cotton candy,
sugar is melted and pressure fed through small openings in a rotary spinning wheel. Upon
exciting, the molten sugar congeals and is stretched into short fibres by centrifugal forces. In
the melt blown system, molten polymers are forced through small slit openings and high
temperature (230oC-390oC) air is impinged (300-500 miles/hr) at both sides of the exiting film.
The fast-moving air streams effectively stretch or attenuate the molten polymer by multiple
orders of magnitude and solidify it into a random array of discontinuous subdenier fibers. The
fibers are then condensed (separated from the air stream) as a randomly entangled web and
compressed between heated rolls. This paper deals with manufacturing technology, type of
polymers used, web characteristics, properties and its various applications.

Figure 1: Process layout of melt blown systems

Process Description

A typical melt blowing process consists of the following elements:

 Extruder
 Metering pumps,
 Die assembly
 Web formation
 Winding
 Bonding

Extruder
The polymer pellets which are fed through the hopper feeder supplies pellets to the
Archimedean screw, which rotates conveys pellets forward along hot walls of the cylinder
between the grooves of the screw. As the polymer moves along the cylinder, it melts due to the
heat and frictional force. The screw is divided into feed, transition, and metering zones. 

 The feed zone-preheats the polymer pellets

 Transition zone- compresses and homogenizes the melting polymer

 Metering zone-serves to generate maximum pressure for extrusion. The pressure of

molten polymer is controlled by the breaker plate with screen pack. It also filters out
dirt and infused polymer lumps [5-7].

Metering pump
The metering pump is a positive-displacement and constant-volume device for uniform melt
delivery to the die assembly. It ensures consistent flow of clean polymer mix under process
variations in viscosity, pressure, and temperature. The metering pump also provides polymer
metering and the required process pressure. The metering pump typically has two intermeshing
and counter-rotating toothed gears. The positive displacement is accomplished by filling each
gear tooth with polymer on the suction side of the pump and carrying the polymer around to
the pump discharge, as shown in Figure 2. The molten polymer from the gear pump goes to the
feed distribution system to provide uniform flow to the die nosepiece in the die assembly (or
fiber forming assembly).

Die Assembly

The die assembly is the most important element of the melt blown process. It has three distinct
components: polymer-feed distribution, die nosepiece, and air manifolds.
Feed Distribution

The feed distribution in a melt-blown die is more critical than in a film or sheeting die for two
reasons. First, the melt-blown die usually has no mechanical adjustments to compensate for
variations in polymer flow across the die width. Second, the process is often operated in a
temperature range where thermal breakdown of polymers proceeds rapidly. The feed
distribution is usually designed in such a way that the polymer distribution is less dependent on
the shear properties of the polymer. This feature allows the melt blowing of widely different
polymeric materials with one distribution system. The feed distribution balances both the flow
and the residence time across the width of the die. There are basically two types of feed
distribution that have been employed in the melt-blown die: T-type (tapered and untapered)
and coat hanger type. Presently, the coathanger type feed distribution is widely used because it
gives both even polymer flow and even residence time across the full width of the die.

Die Nosepiece

Design and fabrication of the nosepiece decides the web uniformity. The die nosepiece is a
hollow and tapered piece of metal having several hundred orifices across the width. The
polymer melt is extruded from these holes to form filament strands and hot air is passed along
the fibers. Typical die nosepiece has 0.4 mm diameter and orifices spaced at 1 to 4 per mm.
There are 2 types of die nosepiece used: capillary type (slots) and drilled hole type (very small
holes) [12, 13]. During processing, die assembly is heated section-wise using external heaters to
attain desired processing temperatures. Monitoring of the temperatures is necessary to
produce uniform webs. Typical die temperatures range from 2l50C to 3400C. 
Air Manifolds

The air manifolds supply the high velocity hot air (also called as primary air) through the slots
on the top and bottom sides of the die nosepiece, as shown in Figure 4. The high velocity air is
generated using an air compressor. The compressed air is passed through a heat exchange unit
such as an electrical or gas heated furnace, to heat the air to desired processing temperatures.
They exits from the top and bottom sides of the die through narrow air gaps, as shown in Figure
4. Typical air temperatures range from 230oC to 360oC at velocities of 0.5 to 0.8 the speed of
sound.

Web Formation

As soon as the molten polymer is extruded from the die holes, high velocity hot air streams
(exiting from the top and bottom sides of the die nosepiece) attenuate the polymer streams to
form microfibers. As the hot air stream containing the microfibers progresses toward the
collector screen, it draws in a large amount of surrounding air (also called secondary air) that
cools and solidifies the fibers, as shown in Figure 4. The solidified fibers subsequently get laid
randomly onto the collecting screen, forming a self-bonded nonwoven web. The fibers are
generally laid randomly (and also highly entangled) because of the turbulence in the air stream,
but there is a small bias in the machine direction due to some directionality imparted by the
moving collector. The collector speed and the collector distance from the die nosepiece can be
varied to produce a variety of melt-blown webs. Usually, a vacuum is applied to the inside of
the collector screen to withdraw the hot air and enhance the fiber laying process.
 Fig: Web formation

Winding

The melt-blown web is usually wound onto a cardboard core and processed further according
to the end-use requirement. The combination of fiber entanglement and fiber-to-fiber bonding
generally produce enough web cohesion so that the web can be readily used without further
bonding. However, additional bonding and
finishing processes may further be applied to these melt-blown webs.

Bonding

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.

Finishing

Although most nonwovens are considered finished when they are rolled up at the end of the
production line, many receive additional chemical or physical treatment such as calendering,
embossing, and flame retardance. Some of these treatments can be applied during production,
while others must be applied in

Other Processes for Melt blown Production of Non-woven.

Fibres Suitable for Melt Blowing Technique 
  Polypropylene, nylon 6 is easy to process and makes good web

 Nylon 11 melt-blows well into webs that have very unusual leather like feel

 Polypropylene with its low viscosity has a low melting point and is easy to draw into
fibers

Applications of Melt Blown Non-Woven 

Filtration media

This market segment continues to be the largest single application. The best known application
is the surgical face mask filter media. The applications include both liquid filtration and gaseous
filtration. Some of them are found in cartridge filters, clean room filters and others.

Medical fabrics

The second largest meltblown market is in medical/surgical applications. The major segments
are disposable gown and drape market and sterilization wrap segment.

Sanitary products

Meltblown products are used in two types of sanitary protection products feminine sanitary
napkin and disposable adult incontinence absorbent products.
Oil adsorbents

Melt blown materials in variety of physical forms are designed to pick up oily materials. The
best known application is the use of sorbents to pick up oil from the surface of water, such as
encountered in an accidental oil spill.

Apparel

The apparel applications of melt-blown products fall into three market segments: thermal
insulation, disposable industrial apparel and substrate for synthetic leather. The thermal
insulation applications takes advantage of microvoids in the structure filled with quiescent air,
resulting in

excellent thermal insulation.

Hot-melt adhesives

The melt-blown process has a special feature: it can handle almost any type of thermoplastic
material. Thus, the task of formulating a hot-melt adhesive to provide specific properties can be
greatly simplified by using the melt blown system to form the final uniform adhesive web.
Electronic specialties

Two major applications exist in the electronics specialties market for melt blown webs. One is
as the liner fabric in computer floppy disks and the other as battery separators and as insulation
in capacitors.

Miscellaneous applications

Interesting applications in this segment are manufacture of tents and elastomeric nonwoven
fabrics which have the same appearance as continuous filament spunbonded products.

Widely used in the below sectors of Nonwoven are technical textiles:

 Agrotech: Agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and forestry.

 Clothtech: Technical components of footwear and clothing.

 Geotech: Geotextiles and civil engineering.

 Hometech: Technical components of furniture, household textiles and floor coverings.

 Indutech: filtration, conveying, cleaning and other industrial uses.

 Medtech: hygiene and medical.

 Mobiltech: automobiles, shipping, railways and aerospace.

 Oekotech: environmental protection.

 Packtech: packaging.

Application area 0f Non-Woven fabric

CONCLUSION

There are many processes involved for production of nonwoven fabric.The melt blown
technique for making nonwoven products has been forecast in recent years as one of the
fastest-growing in the nonwovens industry. With the current expansion and interest, it cannot
be questioned that meltblown is well on its way to becoming one of the major nonwoven
technologies. Technical developments are also on the horizon that will increase the scope and
utility of this technology. The application of speciality polymer structures will no doubt offer
new nonwoven materials unobtainable by other competitive technologies. So a strong and
bright future be forecasted for this technology.

References:

1. Nonwovens Theory, Process, Performance & Testing edited by Albin F Turbak.

2. Introduction to Nonwovens edited by Albin F Turbak.

3. Malkan, S., Tappi Journal, V 01.78, No.6, pp 185-190, 1995.

4. Malkan, S.R. and Wadsworth, L.C., IND JNR, No.2, pp21-23, 1991.

5. Bhat, G.S., Zhang, y., and Wadsworth, L.C., Processing of the Tappi Nonwoven

Conference, Macro Island, FL, May, pp61-68, 1992.

6. Vasanthakumar, N., Dissertation, Dimensional Stability of Melt-blown Nonwoven. The

University of Tennessee, May, 1995.

7.Milligani, M. W., (2001),US Patent 6,247,911

8.Matsui, Y., (1998), US Patent 5,728,407

9.Spunbonded and meltblown technology hand book (1999), INDA, USA

10.Watt, J, M., (1997), US Patent 5,645,057

THANK YOU