ITMI962468A1 - ABRASION-RESISTANT CHENILLE THREAD AND FABRIC AND PROCEDURE FOR ITS MANUFACTURING - Google Patents

Description

"THREAD AND CHENILLE FABRIC RESISTANT TO ABRASION AND PROCEDURE FOR ITS MANUFACTURING"

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to chenille yarns which have significantly improved abrasion resistance characteristics and lower hair loss, and relates to processes for their production. In particular, the invention relates to chenille yarn in which the effect fibers are fused on a retention core using binding filament yarns manufactured from polymers such as ethylene-octene copolymer, "quad" or quadruple nylon polymers, and polymer nylon 11 and other low melting point bonding threads. Among the uses of improved chenille are fabrics for home upholstery, decorative plies, so-called "contract" fabrics (office furniture) and fabrics for automobiles. The invention also relates to a low cost chenille fabric for upholstery having superior abrasion resistance properties and relates to the process for its production. In particular, the invention relates to a process for economically manufacturing such a fabric using conventional chenille fabric manufacturing machines and stenter-type equipment for standard latexes. It also relates to a process producing the superior abrasion resistant chenille fabric using a standard heat setting machine.

The chenille fabric for upholstery is formed by weaving chenille yarn to form the fabric itself. The chenille yarn is first formed on a yarn manufacturing device which twists two basic components together. The first component of the wire is a core component consisting of two or more continuous wires twisted together. This first component provides mechanical strength to the chenille yarn obtained. It also retains the second component, called "the hair", which is made up of discontinuous cut fibers. The fibers of the hair are gripped between and project transversely all around the threads of the core.

Hair fibers are normally held in place mechanically by friction. This construction results in a certain amount of pile loss during normal consumer use of the fabric formed from the chenille yarn due to such inherent structure. This hair loss causes limitations in the use of fabrics that can be designed with normal chenille threads. These limitations for flat woven fabrics include: being able to design soft open home fabrics, designing fabrics for office or "contract" furnishings and for automotive uses, designing decorative plies whose fringes are not likely to shed on the chenille fabric during use. For example, these limitations impose a limit on the wide use of chenille fabric in upholstery fabrics, since these fabrics are necessarily subject to friction resulting in the unpleasant and unsightly hair removal. Thus, prior to the present invention, chenille did not play a significant role in the manufacture of high quality upholstery fabrics.

US Patent No. 5 009 946 to Hatomoto et al. discloses an electrically conductive chenille yarn for automotive upholstery having fibers which may comprise a synthetic polymer such as a polyester yarn coated with an electrically conductive material and a separate retention yarn (Column 5 / row 61). The resulting fabric has a conductive support material consisting of carbon powder dispersed in a support resin. The low melting point polyester thread is melted before weaving, to ensure that the pile is distributed equally around the core, so that the electrically conductive thread can come into better contact with the person sitting on the fabric so as to remove static charges.

US Patent No. 4,517,715 to Yoshida et al. discloses a chenille fabric having a smooth surface touch and a high quality silk-like luster produced using synthetic fiber yarn with protruding ultra-fine fibers, in which the protruding fibers are fused to the core threads at a particular angle. The Yoshida patent employs a multiplicity of heating stages during the manufacture of its chenille fabric. For example, Yoshida et al. employs a water vapor fixing step prior to weaving to melt its low-melting polyamide yarn and temporarily bond the pile yarn to the core yarns. After weaving the fabric and further processing, the fabric is dry heat-set in a spreader dryer to fully bond the fibers to the core threads.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention improves the hair loss characteristic of running structures and allows for the creation of a much wider variety of fabric structures or designs. The invention makes it possible to use chenille yarns in "contract" and automotive upholstery fabrics that previously had abrasion specifications not able to be met by current chenille yarns, and allows the production of high quality upholstery fabrics without latex backing. .

To significantly improve the retention of the hair fibers, a chemical bond is required between the hair and the core. This is achieved by incorporating particular low-melting components into the chenille core either during the spinning step in a chenille machine or previously by texturing in air with the binder yarn. When embedding takes place during spinning, these additional yarns are integrated into the core of the chenille yarn as it is twisted. When heat is subsequently applied to the chenille yarn, the low melting point polymeric yarn loses its integrity as a fiber and forms adhesion points between the core and the pile.

The present invention relates to an improved chenille thread which allows for considerable improvements in the abrasion resistance of various types of upholstery fabric. In one embodiment, the invention relates to an improved chenille upholstery fabric using olefin chenille filler threads and a latex backing.

Previous home upholstery fabrics produced from the original chenille yarns had abrasion test results of 5000 double rubs (ASTM Test 4157). An abrasion resistance of 5000 double rubs (doublé rubs) is equivalent to approximately 3-4 years of use on furniture. The fabric according to the present invention has an abrasion value of 15,000 double rubs. The resulting fabrics have abrasion resistance characteristics superior to any known chenille upholstery fabric similarly constructed with warp ends and wefts and having a similar amount of latex backing. The invention greatly reduces the loss of pile for upholstery fabrics containing chenille.

Fabrics constructed from the new type of chenille and using structures suitable for furniture and automotive fabrics have abrasion values of 40,000 double rubs.

More expensive, high-style home upholstery fabrics are produced using rayon and cotton chenille. In order to provide the fabric with sufficient abrasion resistance, these fabrics receive a latex coating. This coating diminishes the aesthetic and softness characteristics of the fabric. The new chenille provide sufficient abrasion resistance (15,000 double rubs) in these fabrics without the need for a latex backing application process.

Decorative twisted fabrics are constructed by weaving a flat woven-fabric and leaving a fringe of approximately 6 inches. The hair in the normal chenille thread in the fringe comes off very quickly during use. The new chenille allows the hair to remain in the wire in the fringe for prolonged use.

The present invention improves the bond between the core component and the pile component by introducing a binding agent to provide chemical adhesion between the core and the pile in addition to the physical adhesion achieved by twisting the core and pile. The binding agent is a melting binder fiber below 130 ° C to bond the chenille pile yarn to the core yarn. Various binding threads have been employed. They are all multifilament yarns having a denier ranging from 60 to 400. All have melting points below 130 ° C. The three basic types are polyethylene (ethylene octene copolymer), quadruple polymer (nylon 6, nylon 66, emanin 11 and .12), low melting nylon 11 and a copolyester.

The multifilament fiber of the binder yarn has properties that allow its processing in conventional chenille production equipment, and conventional weaving, finishing and heat setting equipment. The type of binder yarn selected is based on the fiber properties of the pile and core components and the melt flow characteristics to provide the optimum fusion between the core and pile components of the chenille. The purpose is to ensure that when the binder yarn melts it runs along and around the core yarns and through each of the ends of the pile yarn and, upon attachment, thereby securing the pile to the core. When a latex backing is used for an olefinic chenille fabric, the binder yarn is preferably made of a meltable polyethylene to run through all the ends or ends of the pile in the chenille yarn during the curing step of the latex backing applied to the fabric chenille fabric. An object of the present invention is to provide a process for manufacturing a chenille upholstery fabric with increased abrasion resistance and using conventional manufacturing equipment to carry out the process.

A further object of the present invention is to provide processes for the manufacture of various types of chenille fabrics for upholstery comprising the steps of providing a chenille yarn forming machine with a binder fiber comprising one or more polymers selected to have permissible melting points. the occurrence of melting at maximum speeds in a stenter, forming on said machine a chenille yarn comprising a pile and a continuous filament yarn core, weaving a chenille fabric from said yarn, and hardening a latex support for the fabric in a stenter during which hardening phase the binding wire is melted to bind the hair to the core of the chenille.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figure 1 illustrates a chenille yarn making machine for combining core and pile ends or ends into chenille yarn.

Figure 2 illustrates a portion of the chenille yarn manufacturing machine of Figure 1 illustrating the formation of a chenille yarn from two core strands and one pile strand.

Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the process steps for the formation of a chenille yarn according to the present invention.

Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of the process steps for the formation of a chenille fabric from the chenille yarn according to the present invention.

Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of the process steps for heat setting the chenille wire to activate the binder wire.

Figure 6 is a diagram of a section of the wire according to the present invention before casting. The air texturing of the core ends is schematically illustrated as a double filament.

Figure 7 is a diagram of a section of the thread according to the present invention after being formed into a fabric and melted. The molten bond filament is shown as a series of small droplets adhering to the effect filaments.

Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment A special polyethylene (a copolymer of ethylene-octene 1147 from Dow Chemical) is used which allows to manufacture a continuous multifilament yarn of polyethylene 1/250/52 with the following properties, and by the process described:

(a) extrudable in commercial fiber extrusion equipment,

(b) strong enough, after stretching of the fibers, to be processed at high speeds by electronic chenille manufacturing equipment,

(c) fuse between 105 ° C and 115 ° C, which makes it possible to predict latex application stenter speeds of 25-30 yards per minute, which is the maximum speed avoiding plasticization of the olefin component of the chenille yarn,

(d) in the fusion phase, the polyethylene yarn melts into position and laminates, in the case of olefin chenille, to the olefin hair and the polyester core, so as to lock the hair to the core,

(e) stabilizing components of the polyethylene are formulated without the use of phenolic components to avoid, in the case of olefinic chenille, the yellowing of the light colors of the olefin threads of the hair.

As shown in Figure 1, the chenille yarn is preferably fabricated on a machine 1 designed to produce pairs of chenille yarns 3, each formed of two binding yarns 5 (see Figure 2) twisted together to tie short cut lengths of a yarn 7 of the pile, by twisting the binding threads together with the cut portions of the pile thread engaged therebetween. The machine has information units which include winding and sizing elements 9 for the effect yarn. The pile thread is wound onto an associated winding and sizing member to form coils around a chenille forming portion. The coils move downward as shown in FIG. 2, and a cutting blade cuts the coils of pile to form lengths which are engaged by the binder threads which are twisted together to hold the pile thread. The construction and operation of such a machine are described in detail in US Patent No. 3 969 881 to Boldrini.

In a preferred embodiment, the polyethylene 1/250 binder yarn 11 is stretched in air (taslanized with a 210/144 polyethylene strand, designated 13, to form a 500 denier taslan binder yarn). This process is performed in a standard air texturing machine with air pressures of 150 psi or pounds per square inch (approximately 10.5 kg / cm <2>) and the thread is run at a speed of 400 yards per minute (about 360 meters per minute). Two ends of the 500 denier polyethylene / polypropylene binder yarn are then employed on the chenille machine for the core yarns 5. The threads 7 of the pile are made of polypropylene 300/144. A twisting level of 12.5 twists per inch ("tpi") (1 inch = 2.54 cm) was employed, still allowing a speed of 14.0 yards per minute ("ypm") to be employed (approximately 12 , 7 meters / minute) on the electronic chenille machine. The thread is wound on spindles 15.

After the yarns have been wound on high-speed winders (1000 ypm or 910 meters per minute) onto dyeing cones 16, they are steam conditioned for 90 minutes in a thermal conditioning unit 17 to stabilize the twisting (atmospheric steam at 100 ° C). This then provides a yarn that is capable of being woven with high efficiency at high speeds (485 wefts per minute) on a Dornier rapier 19 weaving machine. The temperature of the steam is not such as to cause the low melting polyethylene yarn to melt. .

For finishing, fabrics 21 are passed through a latex application unit 23 to receive an air-foamed latex finish. The fabrics continue in a rameuse 25 to harden the latex. The stenter is set for an air temperature of 145 ° C. During this finishing process, the polyethylene component of the core chenille yarn melts and binds the nap of the chenille to the core. For the same total fabric manufacturing cost, the resulting fabric has a threefold improvement in its abrasion resistance, thereby providing superior performance to the user of the resulting furniture.

The following are examples of the process of the present invention.

1. Polypropylene Chenille Fabric for Upholstery

(a) A denier 210 polypropylene garment is stretched in air together with a Hercules T780 polyethylene garment (ethylene-octene copolymer) in a Taslan machine.

(b) Two ends of the resulting air textured yarn are used to form the core of an olefin chenille yarn to be combined with the yarns of the 300 denier olefin pile. This is then thermally conditioned. The resulting wire has wire sizes of 1200 yards per pound (2300 meters per kilogram approximately). Other denier values in the range of 60-400 denier for polyethylene and 200-1000 denier for 10 lefin are acceptable as long as the resulting yarn size is in the range of 500-3000 yards per pound.

(c) the fabric is then woven in a Rapier textile machine, latex is applied to it, and the latex backing of the fabric is then thermally dry cured at normal drying speeds and temperatures.

2. Acrylic Chenille Fabric for Upholstery

(a) The process for making chenille employs a core of two ply 20/1 spun warp twisted polyester (20/1 spun yarn), with one ply of 1/250 quadruple polymeric nylon binder yarn and a multiplicity of plies of a thread of 20/1 or 20/1 spun acrylic pile. The resulting yarn has a wire size of 1500 yards per pound. Other denier values in the 60-400 denier range for quadruple polymeric nylon and 6 / l to 30/1 denier in spun acrylic yarn may be employed. The notation 6/1 corresponds to the nomenclature of the cotton count referring to a single thread of 840 x 6 yards per pound. The resulting acceptable wire size is 500-3000 yards per pound (each yard = 0.91 meters; one pound = 0.453 kilograms).

(b) As in Example 1, weaving, latex application and dry heat curing of the latex backing of the fabric take place at normal dryer speeds and temperatures.

In this notation, 1/150 refers to a single strand of 150 money.

3. Nylon Chenille Office Furniture Fabric

(a) The chenille manufacturing process employs a two-ply twisted nylon core of 24/1 spun warp together with two plies of 75 denier nylon 11 binder thread and a 20 / spun nylon pile thread (spun) 1. The resulting strand has strand sizes corresponding to 2000 yards per pound. Other acceptable money values are the same as in Example 2.

(b) Latex weaving application and dry heat curing of the latex backing of the fabric are carried out at normal dryer speeds and temperatures.

4. Polyester Chenille Fabric for Cars

(a) The chenille manufacturing process employs a core of two ply of 1/100 textured stretch or stretchable polyester together with two plies of 75 denier nylon 11 binder thread and a 150 denier polyester pile thread. Resulting thread has thread tensions of 2500 yards per pound.

(b) Weaving, latex application and dry heat curing of the fabric latex backing take place at normal dryer speeds and temperatures.

(c) Another end-use process is to knit the resulting yarn on a three-dimensional knitting machine that knits into a complete piece an automobile seat cover or cover which is subsequently heat treated to activate the binding wire.

5. Unsupported Cotton Fabrics for upholstery

(a) The chenille manufacturing process employs a two-ply 30/2 core and two-ply 75 denier polyethylene binder yarn and an 18/1 spun cotton pile thread.

(b) The wire is heat set at 130 ° C by feeding the wire in a relaxed state into a heat setting machine. The resulting strand has strand size of 1450 yards per pound.

(c) The fabric is woven and is suitable for direct use in home upholstery applications.

6. Unsupported Rayon Fabrics for Upholstery

(a) The chenille manufacturing process employs a two-ply rayon core with a high wet modulus of 16/1 together with two ply 75/20 polyethylene binder yarn and a 20 / spun rayon pile yarn. 1.

(b) The wire is heat set at 130 ° C by feeding the wire in a relaxed state into a heat setting machine. The resulting thread has a thread size of 2000 yards per pound.

(c) The fabric is woven and is suitable for direct use for home upholstery applications.

In each of Examples 4-6, other acceptable values of money are the same as in Example 2.

7. Decorative Twists, Using Heavy Rayon Chenille (a) The chenille manufacturing process employs two plies of 1/250 polyethylene together with two plies of 12 / 1.HWM rayon and one yarn of spun rayon hair. 12/1. The resulting fi10 has (b) The wire is heat set at 150 ° C by feeding the wire in a relaxed state into a heat setting machine. (c) The thread is then woven into a decorative twist. Other denier values in the 60-400 denier range for 11 binder yarn and 4/1 to 16/1 for the pile yarn are acceptable, as long as the resulting yarn size is in the 200-1500 range yards per pound.

8. Decorative Twists, Using a Heavy Cotton Chenille (a) The production process of the chenille uses two plies of polyethylene 1/250 together with two plies of spun cotton 8/1 and a thread of the spun cotton pile 12 / 1. The resulting yarn has a wire size of 300 yards per pound.

(b) The wire is heat set at 150 ° C by feeding the wire in a relaxed state in a heat setting machine.

(c) The thread is then woven to form a decorative twist.

In each of Examples 4-8, other acceptable money values are the same as in Example 2.

The invention has been previously described with reference to a preferred embodiment. However, it is to be understood that the described embodiment is merely exemplary of the present invention, and that the details of such embodiment are not to be regarded as limiting the scope of the invention which is defined in the following claims and their equivalents.

Claims (11)

CLAIMS 1. A process for the manufacture of a chenille yarn comprising the steps of (a) texturizing a taslan binder yarn consisting of a respective strand of polyethylene and polypropylene in the air with a filament yarn to form a taslanized binder yarn, (b) combine the textured binder yarn in the air with a polypropylene pile yarn in a chenille machine to form a chenille yarn, (c) thermoconditioning said chenille yarn below a temperature at which said binder yarn melts, to stabilize the twist, where the size of the wire is between 500 and 3000 yards per pound (between approximately 450 and 2700 meters per 0.453 kilograms). 2. Process for the manufacture of a chenille yarn comprising the steps of (a) texturizing a quadruple polymeric nylon binder yarn with a filament yarn in the air to form a taslanized binder yarn, (b) combining the binder yarn textured in the air with a pile yarn of an acrylic yarn spun in a chenille machine to form a chenille yarn, (c) thermally conditioning said chenille yarn below a temperature at which said binder yarn melts, to stabilize the twist, where the wire size is between 500 and 3000 yards per pound. 3. Process for the manufacture of a chenille yarn comprising the steps of (a) texturizing a nylon binder yarn with a filament yarn in the air to form a taslanized binder yarn, (b) combining the binder yarn textured in the air with a pile yarn of a spun nylon yarn in a chenille machine to form a chenille yarn, (c) thermally conditioning said binder yarn below a temperature at which said binder yarn melts, to stabilize the twist, where the wire size is between 500 and 3000 yards per pound. 4. Process for the manufacture of a chenille yarn comprising the steps of (a) texturizing a nylon 11 binder yarn with a filament yarn in the air to form a taslanized binder yarn, (b) combining the binder yarn textured in the air with a pile yarn of a continuous filament textured polyester in a chenille machine to form a chenille yarn, (c) thermally conditioning said chenille yarn below a temperature at which said binder yarn melts, to stabilize the twist, where the wire size is between 500 and 3000 yards per pound. 5. Process for the manufacture of a chenille yarn comprising the steps of (a) combining a plurality of core yarns and taslan binder yarns consisting of a respective strand of polyethylene and polypropylene in a chenille machine in combination with a polypropylene pile yarn to form a chenille yarn, (b) thermally conditioning said chenille yarn below a temperature at which said binder yarn melts, to stabilize the twist, where the wire size is between 500 and 3000 yards per pound. 6. A process for manufacturing an abrasion resistant chenille fabric for upholstery comprising (a) employing a chenille yarn manufactured by the process according to any one of claims 1-5, which employs a binder fiber consisting of a polymer selected to have a melting point allowing melting to occur at maximum speed in a stenter, (b) weaving a chenille fabric from said yarn, (c) hardening a latex support for the fabric in a stenter during which the curing step the binding yarn is melted to bind the pile to the chenille core. 7. Process for the manufacture of decorative and abrasion resistant plies comprising (a) combining a plurality of core threads of a spun cotton thread and polyethylene binder threads in a chenille machine in combination with a pile thread of a spun cotton thread to form a chenille thread, (b) heat setting said chenille yarn at a temperature of 150 ° C on a wire heat setting machine, (c) weave a decorative chenille twist, where the final thread size is between 200 and 1500 yards per pound (one yard - 0.91 meters; one pound = 0.453 kilograms). 8. Process for manufacturing abrasion resistant decorative throw comprising (a) combining a plurality of core yarns of a spun rayon yarn and polyethylene binder yarns in a chenille machine in combination with a pile yarn of a spun rayon yarn to form a china yarn, (b) heat setting said chenille yarn at a temperature of 150 <®> C on a wire heat setting machine, (c) weaving a decorative chenille twist, where the size of the final thread is between 200 and 1500 yards per pound. 9. A process for manufacturing abrasion resistant decorative twines comprising (a) combining a plurality of core yarns of a spun acrylic yarn and polyethylene binder yarns in a chenille machine in combination with a pile yarn of a spun acrylic yarn to form a chenille yarn, (b) heat setting said chenille yarn at a temperature of 150 ° C on a wire heat setting machine, (c) weaving a decorative chenille twist, where the final thread size is between 200 and 1500 yards per pound. 10. A process for manufacturing an abrasion resistant chenille fabric for upholstery comprising (a) employing a chenille yarn manufactured by the process according to any one of claims 1-5, employing a binder fiber consisting of a polymer selected to have a melting point which allows melting to occur at maximum rates in a stenter, (b) weaving a chenille fabric from said yarn, c) treating said fabric in a stenter at a temperature sufficient to melt the binding yarn. 11. Process for the manufacture of a chenille yarn comprising the steps of (a) texturizing a low-melting binder yarn in the air, (b) combining the binder yarn textured in the air with a pile yarn selected from the pile yarns according to claims 1-8, (c) thermally conditioning said chenille yarn below the temperature at which said binder yarn melts, to stabilize the twist.