Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc.

Kurt W Ostermeier

Kenneth J Mitchell

Paul Douglas Beuther

Richard Joseph Kamps

Richard Allen Anderson

Robert C Sokolowski

Michael C Josephs

A uniformly smooth Yankee side tissue product is provided. This tissue has the bulk of a creped tissue product but with a substantially smoother Yankee side surface of the sheet.

Smooth bulky creped paper product

Fibrous webs are bonded by passing through a nip comprising an anvil and a hammer vibrating at high frequencies in the presence of uncombined liquid. The liquid is moved within the web causing rearrangement and entanglement of the fibers resulting in improved web properties such as strength, drape, and softness. The nature of the rearrangement and entanglement may be varied to produce random or highly entangled webs having correspondingly varying properties. Other embodiments include the use of additional fibers or other materials in the liquid or in the web and the bonding of multiple layers.

Apparatus for forming nonwoven web

A nonwoven fabric-like material having a unique combination of strength, absorbency and hand consists essentially of an air-formed matrix of thermoplastic polymer microfibers having an average fiber diameter of less than about 10 microns, and a multiplicity of individualized wood pulp fibers disposed throughout the matrix of microfibers and engaging at least some of the microfibers to space the microfibers apart from each other. The wood pulp fibers are interconnected by and held captive within the matrix of microfibers by mechanical entanglement of the microfibers with the wood pulp fibers, the mechanical entanglement and interconnection of the microfibers and wood pulp fibers alone forming a coherent integrated fibrous structure. The coherent integrated fibrous structure may be formed by the microfibers and wood pulp fibers without any adhesive, molecular or hydrogen bonds between the two different types of fibers. The wood pulp fibers are preferably distributed uniformly throughout the matrix of microfibers to provide a homogeneous material. The material is formed by initially forming a primary air stream containing the melt blown microfibers, forming a secondary air stream containing the wood pulp fibers, merging the primary and secondary streams under turbulent conditions to form an integrated air stream containing a thorough mixture of the microfibers and wood pulp fibers, and then directing the integrated air stream onto a forming surface to air form the fabric-like material. The microfibers are in a soft nascent condition at an elevated temperature when they are turbulently mixed with the wood pulp fibers in air.

Nonwoven fabric and method of producing same

Method of bonding fibrous webs and resulting products

Webs having a desirable combination of strength and fabric-like characteristics can be prepared by ultrasonically induced fusion of a web of unbonded, molecularly oriented thermoplastic fibers at intermittent regions and in a manner such that the intensity of fusion in the individual intermittent regions diminishes from the center of the regions to their edges. On subsequently stretching, those areas of the regions which are most intensively fused break apart to form the perforations in the web.

Apertured nonwoven webs

Fabric-like nonwoven, elastic materials of substantially continuous and randomly deposited, molecularly oriented filaments of a thermoplastic polymer are disclosed. Elasticity is achieved by causing the filaments to buckle either between spot bond areas disposed through out the material or as a result of a microcreping action and thereafter heat setting the filaments in their buckled configuration to provide a memory therefor, so that, on subsequent stretching and release of strain, the filaments will return to their buckled configuration. High bulk elastic laminates of the materials can also be prepared with ply attachment preferably being achieved by sonic bonding techniques.

Growing community of inventors

Menasha, WI, United States of America

Kurt W Ostermeier