Abstract
Recent research on all aspects of thermally point bonded nonwovens has led to considerable improvements in the understanding of material requirements for these nonwovens, the changes that occur during bonding and the resultant deterioration of the mechanical properties of the nonwoven materials. This paper addresses how one may use a bicomponent fiber technology to overcome the shortcomings of the thermal bonding and obtain high strength spunbond fabrics. In particular, we present the utility of islands-in-the-sea (I/S) bicomponent fibers for optimizing the strength of thermally bonded fabrics. To examine the role of various bonding temperatures on the fabric performance, pre-consolidated webs were formed and subsequently, thermally bonded. Thus, any influence introduced by potential variations in the structure was minimized. Point-bonded bicomponent samples made up of nylon-6 (N6) as the islands and low density polyethylene (PE) as the sea showed great promise with respect to their mechanical properties, suggesting that the use of bicomponent fibers can be beneficial for strength optimization of thermally bonded spunbond nonwovens.