Apparatus for making a continuous thermoplastic fleece

Abstract

An apparatus for making a plastic filament web has in a vertical stack starting from the top an extruder releasably mounted on a platform, connected to a spinneret, and supplying molten plastic thereto for formation of plastic streams, a blowing unit directly beneath the spinneret cooling the streams and forming them into plastic filaments, a stretching gap directly beneath the blowing unit stretching the plastic filaments, a diffuser shaft directly beneath the stretching gap looping the stretched plastic filaments, and a foraminous conveyor directly beneath the diffuser shape receiving the looped and stretched filaments as a fleece which it transports horizontally out of the apparatus. A lowermost housing containing the conveyor sits directly on a stationary support surface and has an upper surface. An uppermost housing spaced above the lowermost housing supporting the extruder platform contains at least the spinneret and has a lower surface. A plurality of intermediate housings in a stack between the lowermost and uppermost housings contain the blowing unit, the stretching gap, and the diffuser shaft and each have a lower and an upper surface. Each lower surface directly engages and fits complementarily to the upper surface of the underlying housing with the intermediate and uppermost housings substantially wholly supported on the underlying housings and on the lowermost housing and the housings forming a tower supporting the platform.