Abstract
The primary goal of this research was to determine optimum processing conditions to produce commercially acceptable melt blown (MB) thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) non-woven fabrics. The 20-inch wide Accurate Products MB pilot line at the Textiles and Nonwovens Development Center (TANDEC), The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was utilized for this study. MB TPU webs having small fiber diameters were obtained from film-forming and highly elastic fiber-forming TPUs and the webs were mechanically strong and durable to abrasion compared to MB PP. The basic MB process was found to be fundamentally valid for the MB TPU process; however, the MB process was more complicated for TPU than PP, because web structures and properties of MB TPUs are very sensitive to MB process conditions. Furthermore, different TPU polymers responded very differently to MB processing and exhibited different web structure and properties, although uniform elastic MB webs were produced with average fiber diameters as small as 5.0μm. Preliminary research leading to this study was funded the Army Research Office (ARO) and the findings were used by ARO towards the development of an elastic chemical protective liner with better overall comfort attributes and protection against chemical warfare agents.