E.i. Dupont De Nemours and Company

Lyles Howard Sowell

Todd A McCoy

Andrew James Giles

Phillip Osborne Staples

James Stephen Bailey

Kenneth Stephen Freund

Leonard Ray Tucker

Elizabeth L Frisbie

John M Dakin

Stephen E Moore

Nathan Cory Jetton

The invention is particularly related to the problems of dispersing fiber to obtain a uniform distribution. The invention includes tapered ducts oriented at an appropriate angle relative to the horizontal for redirecting and decreasing the speed of an air stream containing fiber therein such that the fiber precipitates from the air stream and falls gently to form a uniform fiber bed in a bin.

Inlet design for handling bulk textile fiber

A process of feeding carded fiber to an airlay and particularly to combining carding technology with airlay technology. A carding machine portion is arranged to card fiber while a disperser-roll in the airlay portion picks the individualized carded fibers from a tool bed roll and centrifugally doffs them into an air stream. As such, airlays will be able to handle longer fiber lengths which conventional airlay equipment is unable to handle or satisfactorily open up. Further, an improved process for doffing fiber from a airlay machine and particularly centrifugally doffing fiber from a carding machine.

Feeding carded fiber to an airlay

This invention relates to improved aerodynamics in dry fiber web forming machines and particularly to airlays which form high quality webs. The invention includes a disperser roll for feeding fibers into the air stream and a second roll opposite to the disperser roll for balancing the disruptive effects of long stationary walls and rotating members in the air duct. In one alternative arrangement of the invention, the fibers are also fed to the air stream by a second disperser roll opposite the first disperser roll.

Method and apparatus for improving the air flow through an air duct in a

A rate control system to deliver a constant throughput for batt forming equipment that forms the batts by maintaining a pressure gradient across fibers deposited on a rotating condenser screen, the weight of a moving fiber batt is continuously measured as it passes over an inclined slide mounted on load cells. This measurement is converted electronically to a rate value which is then used with the pressure gradient signal to control the delivery of fiber to the condenser screen by adjusting the speed of the feed rolls used to feed the fiber to the condenser screen.

Method for controlling throughput

An apparatus and method for cleanly and consistently cutting certain nonwoven fabrics, specifically spunlaced fabrics. The apparatus comprises a pin bar doff knife having one or more rows of closely-spaced, pointed, parallel pins attached perpendicularly to a bar. When the pin bar doff knife is tensioned against a spunlaced fabric to be cut, the pins act to disentangle individual fibers making up the fabric. The result is a very clean fabric cut when used on either lightweight or heavyweight spunlaced fabrics. In particular, the pin bar doff knife produces consistent cuts in heavyweight spunlaced fabrics made of polyester fibers and/or aramid fibers having very high fiber stiffness.

Pin bar doff knife

A gate/loading arrangement which balances applied gate force betweem the edges of tow being crimped in a stuffer box crimper. A single hinged gate has been replaced with two or three equal sized gates and force is applied to the gates from an air cylinder through a pivotal linkage.

Crimper discharge regulation

A spinneret assembly which includes a filter bed holder containing a filter element. The filter element increases in porosity from its center to its periphery.

Filter element

The addition of a circumferential groove in the inner peripheral surface of the ring gasket made of cold-flowable metal induces diametrical expansion of the gasket during compression.

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Old Hickory, TN, United States of America

Lyles Howard Sowell