Kimberly-clark Worldwide, Inc.

Theodore Edwin Farrington, Jr

Mark Alan Burazin

Michael John Rekoske

Michael Alan Hermans

Fung-jou Chen

Kristin Ann Goerg

Julia Smith Bahlman

Robert J Makolin

Kai F Chiu

Greg Arthur Wendt

David Alan Heaton

Steven Alexander Engel

Stephen John Sudall

David Arthur Hyland

Paul Edward Williams

Robert John Makolin

Soft throughdried tissues, which are sufficiently soft to serve as premium bathroom tissues, can be made without the use of a Yankee dryer. The typical Yankee functions of building machine direction and cross-machine direction stretch are replaced by a wet end rush transfer and the throughdrying fabric design, respectively. It is particularly advantageous to form the tissue with chemimechanically treated fibers in at least one layer. The resulting tissues have high bulk (about 6 cubic centimeters per gram or greater) and low stiffness.

Soft tissue

Throughdried tissue products such as facial tissue, bath tissue, and paper towels are made using a throughdrying fabric having from about 5 to about 300 machine direction impression knuckles per square inch (per 6.45 square centimeters) which are raised above the plane of the fabric. These impression knuckles create corresponding protrusions in the throughdried sheet which impart a significant amount of cross-machine direction stretch to the sheet. In addition, other properties such as bulk, absorbent capacity, absorbent rate and flexibility are also improved.

Method of making soft tissue products

Uncreped throughdried cellulosic webs having improved smoothness and stretch are produced by transferring a newly formed web from the forming fabric to a slower moving, high fiber support transfer fabric, preferably using a fixed gap or kiss transfer in which the forming fabric and the transfer fabric converge and diverge at the leading edge of the transfer shoe. The web is then transferred to a throughdrying fabric and throughdried to final dryness, producing a web having an improved softness due to increased surface smoothness.

Method for making smooth uncreped throughdried sheets

Growing community of inventors

Appleton, WI, United States of America

Theodore Edwin Farrington, Jr