Basics of Textiles | Textile Articles

Mechanical Bonded Non-Woven Fabric

Published: October 16, 2020
Author: Amit Ratanpara

Mechanical Bonded Fabrics essentially involves the strengthening of webs through the physical entanglement of fibres. Mechanical methods include needlepunching, hydroentangling and stitch bonding.

Non-woven fabric is a fabric like material made from staple fibre (short) and long fibres (continuous long), bonded together by chemical, mechanical, heat or solvent treatment.

Why bonding?

  • All fibres (Natural, Manmade) always have to achieve some specific requirements, the fiber choice with the appropriate application of bonding becomes essential.
  • This can be achieved by comparing the requirements to be met together with their obtained results from individual fibre.

Non-woven fabric bonding can be defined as:

  • Mechanical Bonding
  • Chemical Bonding
  • Thermal Bonding
  • Bonding of Spun Laid Web

Mechanical Bonding

Mechanical bonding is when the fibres are not altered by either heat or chemicals and are instead bonded by an alternate method.

Hydro-Entanglement bonding (also called spun lace), bonds the fibers by mechanically intertwining the fibres with water jets. Similar to spunlace there is also needle punching/needle felting which uses needles to intertwine the fibers as opposed to the water jets.

Also, there is ultrasonic pattern bonding for use in materials that need to be a bit softer than other non-wovens.

Mechanical Bonding Types

  • Stitch Bonding
  • Needle Punch Technique
  • Hydro-Entanglement

Needle Punching

  • Needle-punching is a non-woven process by which the fibres are mechanically entangled to produce a non-woven fabric by repeated penetration of barbed needles through a preformed dry fibrous web.
  • More importantly, Needles are the heart of the needle-punching process.
  • The machine which accomplishes this process is known as needle loom.

Applications:

  • Geosynthetics
  • Filter media
  • Synthetic leather
  • Waddings and Paddings
  • Floor coverings
  • Automotive fabrics
  • Insulation
  • Blankets
  • Wipes
  • Roofing

Hydro Entanglement

Hydroentanglement, spun lacing, hydraulic entanglement, and water jet needling are synonymous terms describing the process of mechanically bonding the fibres in a web by means of high energy water jets. Moreover, the machine which accomplishes this is known as hydroentanglement or Spun lace machine.

Applications:

  • Wipes
  • Surgical fabrics
  • Medical gauge
  • Filter cloths
  • Artificial leather
  • Automotive fabrics
  • Linings and clothes, etc.

Stitch bonding

Stitch-bonding is a process by which fibre webs and/or yarns are bonded together by stitching with continuous filament or staple yarn, creating a series of loops that hold the web together.

Stitch bond is a non-woven construction where the fabric is formed by stitching or knitting the fibres to form a fabric with the appearance of a knit fabric. However, in the most common cases it involves warp knitting of yarns through a fibrous mat. It can also be knitted by fibres without yarns or knitting of yarns around laid warp and filling yarns which do not interlace with each other.

Applications:

  • Soft furnishings, upholstery fabrics for mattresses and blankets.
  • Transportation cloth.
  • Cleaning cloths, fabrics for hygiene and sanitary purposes.
  • Secondary carpet backing.
  • Lining fabrics, interlining for shoes and apparel.
  • Adhesive tapes (e.g., those used for harnessing electric cables in automobiles)
  • Insulating materials.
  • Geo textiles, filter fabrics.

 

 

 

 

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