Classifications

• • D—TEXTILES; PAPER
  • D02—YARNS; MECHANICAL FINISHING OF YARNS OR ROPES; WARPING OR BEAMING
  • D02G—CRIMPING OR CURLING FIBRES, FILAMENTS, THREADS, OR YARNS; YARNS OR THREADS
  • D02G3/00—Yarns or threads, e.g. fancy yarns; Processes or apparatus for the production thereof, not otherwise provided for
  • D02G3/44—Yarns or threads characterised by the purpose for which they are designed
  • D02G3/445—Yarns or threads for use in floor fabrics
• • D—TEXTILES; PAPER
  • D02—YARNS; MECHANICAL FINISHING OF YARNS OR ROPES; WARPING OR BEAMING
  • D02G—CRIMPING OR CURLING FIBRES, FILAMENTS, THREADS, OR YARNS; YARNS OR THREADS
  • D02G3/00—Yarns or threads, e.g. fancy yarns; Processes or apparatus for the production thereof, not otherwise provided for
  • D02G3/22—Yarns or threads characterised by constructional features, e.g. blending, filament/fibre
  • D02G3/40—Yarns in which fibres are united by adhesives; Impregnated yarns or threads
  • D02G3/402—Yarns in which fibres are united by adhesives; Impregnated yarns or threads the adhesive being one component of the yarn, i.e. thermoplastic yarn
• • D—TEXTILES; PAPER
  • D05—SEWING; EMBROIDERING; TUFTING
  • D05C—EMBROIDERING; TUFTING
  • D05C17/00—Embroidered or tufted products; Base fabrics specially adapted for embroidered work; Inserts for producing surface irregularities in embroidered products
  • D05C17/02—Tufted products
  • D05C17/026—Tufted products characterised by the tufted pile surface

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a method of stabilising the pile yarns of tufted, woven or knitted yarn pile fabrics, especially carpets, rugs, upholstery fabrics and other textile products, by bonding together at least some of the fibres within the pile to improve wear and appearance characteristics.
• pile tufts or loops
• backing a backing or base structure from which the pile protrudes and which maintains the structural integrity of the whole fabric.
• the backing may be created at the same time as the pile is assembled together with the backing (as in carpet weaving of the type producing Axminster and Wilton carpets), or may have been manufactured prior to the process which creates the pile structure (as in the manufacture of tufted carpets).
• the pile may be in the form of (a) cut-pile, in which only one end of each pile tuft of yarn is attached to the backing, or (b) loop-pile, in which both ends of each pile loop are attached to the backing, or (c) both cut-pile and loop-pile.
• Bonding of fibres together to form substantially twist-free yarns, which may or may have not have been false-twisted (that is, temporarily twisted) during bond formation is known in the industry and is disclosed, for example, in British patent specification 1452964.
• the application of bonding methods to yarn manufacture including those methods which employ thermally fusible fibres as the bonding agent, may be used either (a) to provide a substitute for twist as a means of permitting the manufacture of a continuous structure (that is, yarn) from discontinuous fibres, as disclosed in British patent 1346899, or (b) to provide a method of producing high bulk in substantially twist-free yarns, as disclosed in British patent specification 1393712.
• the application of bonding techniques to twisted yarn structures may be used (a) to provide cohesion in yarns and threads bonded with hot-melt powder adhesives, as in British patent specification 1270174, or (b) to provide adhesion at the surface of yarns used as structural members of the backing of carpets, which may increase the effectiveness of binding the pile yarns into the carpet but does not otherwise effect the pile yarns, as disclosed in British patent specification 1352311.
• WO88/03969 discloses a synthetic yarn with a minor proportion of a heat activated binder fibre.
• a carpet made of the twisted, plied and twist set yarn exhibits enhanced crush resistance and appearance.
• the amount of twist in the pile yarn and the degree to which the yarn has been set are major factors determining both the initial tuft definition when manufactured and the retention of tuft definition in use.
• An alternative objective of the present invention is to provide a method of enabling acceptable tuft definition to be achieved at less than usual yarn twist levels, thereby enabling manufacturing cost to be reduced.
• a method of improving tuft definition and appearance retention of yarn pile fabrics, including carpets which includes:
• At least some of the pile yarn in a fabric, carpet or rug are structured such that some of the fibres within the pile yarn are bonded together intermittently and randomly substantially throughout the length of the pile tuft or loop formed from the pile yarn.
• the bonding fibre is heat sensitive so that by temporarily raising the temperature of the manufacturing process sufficiently to melt wholly or partially at least part of the bonding agent, such that after cooling the pile and yarn structure is stabilised by inter-fibre bonding within the structure.
• the method is applicable to any twisted yarn structure containing continuous or discontinuous fibres and to twisted yarn structures containing continuous filaments.
• the bonding agent can consist of bonding fibres (known to the industry) of which at least part of the surface can be melted.
• the partially fusible fibres bond to each other or to contiguous non-adhesive fibres which are in the yarn.
• non-adhesive fibres as used herein means fibres which remain non-adhesive at and below the temperature required for bonding.
• the bonding fibres are bicomponent fibres in which one component melts and becomes adhesive at a lower temperature than does the other component. The component having the lower melt temperature comprises part of or all of the surface of the bonding fibre.
• the non-adhesive fibre present is an animal fibre,which does not melt at the temperature required for bonding.
• the dispersion of the bonding fibres among the non-adhesive fibres can be achieved by conventional textile blending techniques.
• the blend of bonding and non-adhesive fibres may be processed to yarn form by any of the following fibre-to-yarn manufacturing techniques, woollen (condenser) spinning, semi-worsted spinning, worsted spinning, wrap spinning, friction spinning, open-end spinning, cotton spinning or modified cotton spinning.
• the application of heat to effect bonding may be most beneficially carried out before fabric manufacture during production of a cut-pile fabric and before or after manufacture of a loop-pile fabric.
• the heating medium can most efficiently be a hot fluid such as air or steam.
• a 2-fold (i.e. comprised of two singles yarns plied together) woollen spun pile yarn containing 85% wool fibres and 15% of a bicomponent polyester bonding fibre was bonded by a heat treatment before tufting into cut-pile carpet.
• the bonding fibre was 4 denier 51 mm Melty Type 4080 manufactured by Unitika Limited, 4-68 Kitakyutaro-Machi, Higashi-ku, Osaka, Japan. Blending of the wool and bonding fibre was carried out by conventional stack or sandwich blending followed by two passages of the fibres through a wool opening machine and by conventional woollen (condenser) carding.
• the R500/2 tex yarn produced was bonded by heat-treatment in hank-form in a steam autoclave at 140 degrees C for 30 seconds.
• the singles yarn twist was 170 turns per metre (tpm) and two levels of folding twist were used to produce (a) a sample containing 160 tpm folding twist and (b) a sample containing 120 tpm folding twist.
• Yarns made and stabilised as in Example 2 were tufted to a 10mm pile height, 4mm (5/32 inch) gauge, , loop-pile carpet construction with 360 stitches per metre. After an instrumental simulated carpet wear test (Tetrapod test, as in Example 1), the measured fibre loss was found to be: 0% bonding fibre 1.87grams/square metre 5% bonding fibre 0.34grams/square metre 10% bonding fibre no detectable loss 15% bonding fibre no detectable loss, indicating that pile bonding reduced fibre loss in the simulated wear conditions.
• Example 4 Two fold yarns made and stabilised as in Example 4 were tufted into cut-pile carpet as described in Example 2. Testing of yarn wet stabiity, as in Example 1, showed that the proportion of yarn snippets which disintegrated during the test was: 0% bonding fibre 100% 5% bonding fibre 58% 10% bonding fibre 13% 15% bonding fibre 1% which indicated that bonding increased the yarn wet stability.
• the tuft definition was found to increase as the proportion of bonding fibre increased, for new, unworn carpets.
• the tuft definition was found to be greater at 10% and 15% bonding fibre content than at 5% bonding fibre content, which in turn was greater than that of the unbonded 100% wool yarn, (a) for carpet samples which had been worn and soiled in a floor trial, (b) for carpet samples which had been steam cleaned after wear and soiling in a floor trial, and (c) for carpet samples which had been rotary-brush shampoo cleaned after wear and soiling in a floor trial.
• the bonded-pile carpets were found to have greater tuft definition than the comparable 100% wool yarns, both when new and after simulated wear.
• the two-fold yarn was heat-treated (to effect the bonding) on a package-to-package yarn continuous heat treating machine of a type known to the industry and commonly used for heat-setting nylon carpet yarns and carpet yarns containing other fibres.
• Samples of the yarn were so treated at 600 metres per minutes yarn speed, equivalent to 67 seonds dwell time in the chamber containing air and super-heated steam at temperatures ranging from 145 degrees C to 190 degrees C. All of the samples were found to have a high degree of twist stability and resistance to disintegration when subjected to the WRONZ Set Test described in Example 1.
• the bond-stabilised yarn had a higher degree of twist stability and resistance to disintegration in the WRONZ Set test than the autoclave-set 100% wool yarn, as indicated by the following percentage of yarn snippets which disintegrated in the test conditions:
• the bond-stabilised pile carpet was also found to have better cover (that is, less space between the tufts), a more upright pile and displayed less thickness loss when worn than the autoclave-set 100% wool yarn.
• the unbacked carpets were beck-dyed (alternatively termed winch-dyed, a process known to the trade) with disperse and acid-levelling dyestuffs colouring both polyester and wool components of the carpets.
• winch-dyed a process known to the trade
• the beck-dyeing process is known to the industry to require a high degree of pile yarn stability to resist the tendency of pile tufts to lose definition during the process and consequently to form a visually undesirable texture.
• the resultant carpets which had bond-stabilised pile had excellent tuft definition, which was as good as or better than that of carpets of the same construction containing chemically set 100% wool yarns of the same construction.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Textile Engineering (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Woven Fabrics (AREA)
• Yarns And Mechanical Finishing Of Yarns Or Ropes (AREA)
• Automatic Embroidering For Embroidered Or Tufted Products (AREA)
• Knitting Of Fabric (AREA)

Priority Applications (2)

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Publications (2)

Family

ID=19922074

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (5)

Families Citing this family (11)

Family Cites Families (12)

• 1987
  • 1987-05-26 NZ NZ22044487A patent/NZ220444A/en unknown
• 1988
  • 1988-05-26 BE BE8800587A patent/BE1002262A5/fr not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 1988-05-26 GB GB8812551A patent/GB2205116B/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 1988-09-22 ES ES88308809T patent/ES2056935T3/es not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1988-09-22 EP EP19880308809 patent/EP0359881B1/en not_active Expired - Lifetime

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