JP2014198075A - Absorbent article with design - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an absorbent article having clear designs and patterns on a surface.SOLUTION: An absorbent article extending in a longitudinal direction includes: a liquid permeable top sheet provided on one side in a thickness direction of the absorbent article; a liquid impermeable or water-repellent back sheet provided on the other side in the thickness direction; an absorber interposed between them; and a liquid permeable second sheet interposed between the top sheet and the absorber. The second sheet is a bulky sheet with density of 20 to 40 g/cm, and the top sheet and the second sheet are mutually related by concave embossment of a prescribed design depressed from the top sheet toward the second sheet.

Description

  The present invention relates to an absorbent article such as a light incontinence pad, a sanitary napkin, and a panty liner, and more particularly, to an absorbent article provided with a predetermined pattern on the surface in contact with the human body.

  Various absorbent articles such as light incontinence pads, sanitary napkins and panty liners have been developed to absorb excrement such as urine and feces, menstrual blood, and vaginal discharge. These absorbent articles include a liquid-permeable top sheet in contact with the skin, a liquid-impermeable or water-repellent back sheet provided on the opposite side of the top sheet, and a liquid interposed therebetween. In addition to the retentive absorber, there is a component that includes, as a constituent element, a second sheet made of a nonwoven fabric that is provided between the top sheet and the absorber to improve liquid permeation and diffusion to the absorber. .

  In such an absorbent article, in order to improve the psychological comfort of the wearer, an absorbent article having an improved design by providing a pattern on the surface on the contact side with the human body has been developed. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a napkin composed of a surface layer composed of a top sheet and a second sheet, a back surface layer provided on the opposite side, and an absorption layer interposed between the surface layer and the back surface layer, Further, there is disclosed a napkin in which a predetermined pattern is simultaneously formed in an uneven shape by embossing on a surface material on the contact side with a human body, more specifically, a top sheet and a second sheet, and an absorber.

Here, the second sheet is composed of point bonds, spunlaces, spunbonded nonwoven fabrics, and the like, like the top sheet, and is bonded to other layers such as the top sheet with a hot melt adhesive. The most preferable material of the second sheet is an air-through nonwoven fabric that is bulky and has many voids as compared with other nonwoven fabrics such as spunbond and spunlace. / M ² polypropylene-polyethylene, flat-sheathed composite thermoplastic fiber (4 denier × 50 mm), and the density is preferably in the range of 0,08 to 0.01 g / cm ³ .

  On the other hand, the absorbent article described in Patent Document 2 is not intended to improve the design like the absorbent article described in Patent Document 1, but here, the absorbent sheet is between the top sheet and the second sheet. From the viewpoint of preventing twisting, a structure in which a second sheet, which is an air-through nonwoven fabric manufactured by an air-through method, is bonded to the back surface of the top sheet by an embossed recess is employed.

JP 2004-181107 A JP 2004-298454 A JP 2004-248965 A

  For the top sheet, an air-through type non-woven fabric is often used from the viewpoint of absorption performance and touch. However, since the air-through type non-woven fabric has a bulky and sparse fiber structure, there is a problem that when the pattern is formed on the air-through type non-woven fabric by embossing, the pattern is not clearly expressed. .

In this regard, according to the configuration of Patent Document 1, since it is configured to emboss all of the top sheet, the second sheet, and the absorber, compared to the case of embossing only the top sheet, It can be said that the pattern can be expressed more clearly. However, since the non-woven fabric used here has a weight per unit area of about 20 g / m ² , even if embossing is performed, a sufficient difference in height that a pattern is sufficiently developed cannot be obtained. It is considered difficult to express a clear pattern.

On the other hand, Patent Document 2 discloses an absorbent article in which a second sheet, which is an air-through nonwoven fabric, is bonded to the back surface of the top sheet by an embossed recess. However, Patent Document 2 describes what the bulk of the second sheet is. Therefore, the bulk of the second sheet is considered to be normally used as in Patent Document 1 and the like, even if the top sheet and the second sheet are embossed, It is unlikely that a sufficient level difference can be obtained with such a bulky second sheet.
In addition, as disclosed in Patent Document 3, a paper diaper in which a top sheet and a second sheet are bonded with an adhesive is known. However, in such a structure, a gap is formed in a portion where the adhesive is not attached. There is a problem that body fluid accumulates in the gap.

  The present invention was made in order to solve such problems in the prior art, focusing on the second sheet of the absorbent article, in particular, the volume of the second sheet as a predetermined size or more, It is an object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article capable of expressing a clear pattern so that a concave emboss formed on a second sheet together with a top sheet produces a relatively large difference in height in the thickness direction. It is another object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article that eliminates the disadvantages caused by using an adhesive by associating a top sheet and a second sheet with each other by concave embossing without using an adhesive.

The present invention provides a liquid-permeable top sheet provided on one side in the thickness direction of the absorbent article, a liquid-impermeable or water-repellent back sheet provided on the other side in the thickness direction, And a liquid-permeable second sheet interposed between the top sheet and the absorbing member, the second sheet is a bulky sheet having a density of 20 to 40 g / cm ³ , The top sheet and the second sheet are characterized by being associated with each other by a concave emboss having a predetermined pattern recessed from the top sheet toward the second sheet.
By setting the bulk of the second sheet in this way, the concave emboss formed by the top sheet and the second sheet has a relatively large height difference in the thickness direction. Clarity can be improved.

In the absorbent article, the top sheet and the second sheet may be fused by hot embossing.
The texture can be maintained and the cost can be reduced by fusing the top sheet and the second sheet by heat without using an adhesive.

In the absorbent article, in addition to the top sheet and the second sheet, the absorbent member may be associated with each other by a concave emboss having the predetermined pattern.
By using an absorbing member in addition to the second sheet, the height difference in the thickness direction of the emboss can be further increased, and the clarity of a predetermined picture can be further improved.

In the above absorbent article, the second sheet may be an air-through nonwoven fabric containing three-dimensional crimpable fibers having a fineness of 2.0 to 4.0 dtex and a basis weight of 20 to 40 g / m ² .
Further, the three-dimensional crimped fiber may be made of at least two kinds of resins made of a polyolefin resin and / or a polyester resin.

In the absorbent article, it is preferable that each pattern constituting the predetermined pattern has a size that fits in four sides of 12 mm on a side, and the interval between adjacent patterns is 12 mm or more.
By limiting the size and interval of the pattern, the hardness of the absorbent article can be kept moderate.

  According to the present invention, the bulk of the absorbent article, in particular, the second sheet has a predetermined size or more, and the concave emboss formed on the top sheet and the second sheet has a relatively large height difference in the thickness direction. Thus, an absorbent article capable of expressing a clear pattern is provided. In addition, an absorbent article is provided in which the top sheet and the second sheet are associated with each other by concave embossing without using an adhesive, and the problems caused by using the adhesive are eliminated.

It is a top view which shows the external appearance of the light incontinence pad which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is the sectional view on the AA line of FIG. FIG. 3 is a partially enlarged view of FIG. 2. It is a figure which shows an example of the pattern pattern of heat embossing. It is the elements on larger scale which showed the modification of this invention by the method similar to FIG. It is sectional drawing of the absorbent article by the modification of this invention.

  Hereinafter, an absorbent article according to one preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the present specification, a light incontinence pad intended for mild incontinence is described as an example of the absorbent article. However, the absorbent article of the present invention is not limited to this, and the sanitary napkin is used. And other absorbent articles such as panty liners.

  FIG. 1 is a plan view showing the appearance of a light incontinence pad 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along line AA of FIG. The light incontinence pad 1 has a substantially vertically long shape as a whole, and the dimensions when used are about 20 to 35 cm in length and about 7 to 15 cm in width. The light incontinence pad 1 includes a liquid permeable top sheet 11 provided on one side in the thickness direction of the light incontinence pad 1 and a liquid impermeability provided on the other side in the thickness direction of the light incontinence pad 1. A water-repellent back sheet 13, an absorber 15 interposed therebetween, and a liquid-permeable second sheet 19 interposed between the top sheet 11 and the absorber 15 are included as main components. The absorber 15 may be surrounded by the core wrap sheet 17.

  In addition to these main members, side sheets 3 made of a water-repellent nonwoven fabric may be provided on the top sheet 11 on both side edges in the width direction of the light incontinence pad 1, and the underwear of the back sheet 13 A peelable adhesive material fastening means 7 for fixing the light incontinence pad 1 to the underwear may be provided on the contact surface. The side sheets 3 are for forming a three-dimensional gather having a function of preventing lateral leakage such as urine, and elastic members 31 are arranged in the three-dimensional gather near the free end along the longitudinal direction. As the elastic member 31, polyurethane, synthetic rubber, natural rubber or the like made of an elastomeric polymer material can be used.

  The top sheet 11 exposed on the surface becomes a part that directly touches the wearer's skin during use. For this reason, the top sheet 11 is formed of a material that is soft to the touch, does not irritate the skin, and has excellent wearability. Moreover, since the top sheet 11 becomes a part which receives excrement directly, it must be formed of a material having durability against moisture such as urine. In order to satisfy these conditions, the top sheet 11 is preferably formed of a material having water repellency. Considering raw material costs and ease of processing, for example, a thermal bond nonwoven fabric (polypropylene / polyethylene, such as air-through). And PET / polyethylene) are considered preferable. Moreover, when using nonwoven fabrics, such as a thermal bond, the thing of the two-layer structure which bonded the long fiber nonwoven fabrics, such as a spun bond nonwoven fabric (polypropylene), to the back surface can also be used. The hydrophilicity of these is adjusted by a hydrophilic treatment.

The second sheet 19 can also be formed of a fiber material, and may be formed of, for example, a thermal bond nonwoven fabric such as air-through. These nonwoven fabrics are subjected to a hydrophilic treatment and have an action of diffusing user's excrement (such as urine) into the absorbent body 15. The second sheet is, for example, a bulky sheet having a basis weight of 20 to 40 g / m ² and a density of 20 to 40 g / cm ³ and having a fineness of 2.0 to 4.0 dtex. The basis weight is set to 20 to 40 g / m ² . The three-dimensional crimped fiber may be made of at least two kinds of resins made of a polyolefin resin and / or a polyester resin.

FIG. 3 shows a partially enlarged view of FIG. The top sheet 11 and the second sheet 19 are fused to each other by a concave emboss having a predetermined pattern that is recessed from the top sheet 11 toward the second sheet 19. Since the second sheet 19 is formed as a bulky sheet having a density of 20 to 40 g / cm ³ , in the present invention, the top sheet 11 and the bulky second sheet 19 are simultaneously heat embossed. Thus, the height difference between the embossed joint portion 21 and its peripheral portion can be increased, the pattern expression can be improved, and the cosmetics can be greatly improved.

  The absorber 15 is formed by mixing fibrillated hydrophilic fibers such as wood pulp with a superabsorbent polymer (SAP). Embossing the absorbent body 15 is preferable because it controls the diffusion of urine and the like and facilitates deformation of the urine collection pad according to the body shape of the user. As the fluff, synthetic fibers or the like may be used instead of the wood pulp fluff. A known SAP can be used. In the absorbent body 15, apart from the embossing used for the top sheet 11 and the second sheet 19, one or more pairs of fit embosses extending in the longitudinal direction to improve the fit by deforming the absorbent article with respect to the body when worn, Emboss to improve the absorption and diffusion of waste.

  The back sheet 13 only needs to be formed from a liquid-impermeable or water-repellent material having a waterproof property so that the liquid held in the absorbent body 15 does not leak into the underwear, and is a thin plastic such as a polyethylene film. Although it can be set as a film, the cloth-like back sheet which laminated the nonwoven fabric on the outer side of a plastic film so that it may be easy to make the sound crisp during wear and to give softness can also be used.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of a pattern pattern of hot embossing. The embossed pattern may be an embossed pattern that is particularly preferred by women, such as a floral pattern or a heart pattern. For example, the pattern in FIG. 4 is a state in which a first group consisting of three crescent moon portions 33 forming an outer frame and a second group consisting of three crescent moon portions 31 forming an inner frame are shifted from each other by 60 degrees. A predetermined gap (“a”) is formed between the crescent portion 33 of the first group and the crescent portion 31 of the second group. These patterns, in particular, the crescent moon portion 33 belonging to the first group is preferably set so as to fit in four sides of a side of 12 mm, and the interval between the patterns, that is, the interval between the first groups is , 12 mm or more is preferable. If it is not provided with a pattern exceeding 12 mm or an interval smaller than 12 mm, the rigidity of the absorbent article becomes too high, and the wearer feels uncomfortable. For the same reason, it is preferable that the line width of the compression portion of the pattern (the width of the crescent moon portion, for example, the maximum width portion thereof is “b”) is 0.4 mm to 1.4 mm or less. This is because if the thickness is 0.4 mm or less, the pattern is not sufficiently molded, and if the thickness is 1.4 mm or more, the surface layer tends to be damaged. In addition to the pattern, a curve or a geometric pattern that matches the pattern may be added.

  FIG. 5 shows a modification of the present invention in the same manner as in FIG. In the modification, in addition to the top sheet 11 and the second sheet 19, the absorber 15 is also heat-sealed to each other by concave embossing. Therefore, here, an embossed portion 23 similar to the joint portion 21 in FIG. 3 is formed on the surface of the absorber 15. The gap between the top sheet 11 and the space formed by embossing the second sheet 19 is filled with the irregularities formed in the absorbent body 15 so that the contact between the second sheet 19 and the absorbent body 15 can be made dense. Is improved.

  EXAMPLES Hereinafter, the present invention will be specifically described with reference to examples. However, of course, the present invention is not limited to these examples.

Absorbent articles having the configuration shown in FIG. The top sheet 11 was prepared with two types of air-through type nonwoven fabric (PP / PE; 2.0 dtex), and the second sheet 19 was prepared with two types of air-through type nonwoven fabric (PP / PE; 2.6 dtex and 5.1 dtex) having different bulks. The bulk was prepared by preparing a fiber web by blending a predetermined amount of fibers that can be crimped by heat, and then preparing and producing the fibers partially by heat treatment. As the crimped fiber, an eccentric core-sheath type composite fiber in which a polypropylene fiber was used as a core sheath and polyethylene was disposed around the core sheath was used. In addition, the back sheet 13 was a polyethylene film (25 μm). Moreover, as the absorber 15, the thing which defibrated NBKP (Southern pine pulp) and the superabsorbent resin as a fluff was used.
On the other hand, as a comparative example, the top sheet was the same as that of the example, and a urine absorbing pad was prepared by joining the second sheet 19 with a hot-melt adhesive using a commercially available product.
The bulk was measured with a peacock paper thickness meter under a load of 40 g / cm ² , and this was divided by the basis weight to determine the basis weight.
The clarity of the pattern was evaluated by five monitors. The evaluation results were classified into four stages: ◎ (very clear), ○ (good), △ (normal), and × (not clear).
For liquid return, extend the light incontinence pad horizontally and fix it, pour a predetermined amount of artificial urine (saline, liquid temperature 36 ± 3 ° C) into the center of the urine collection pad, leave it for 10 minutes, and filter paper and weight Was placed on the absorbent article, and the weight increase of the filter paper after 1 minute was measured. The filter paper used was a stack of 10 sheets of ADVANTEC # 2 (55 mm diameter).

The obtained results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1

As is clear from Table 1, it can be seen that in both Examples 1 and 2, the clarity of the pattern is good and the rewetting is reduced. In particular, as in Example 1, when the bulk of the second sheet was 38.0 g / cm ³ , it became significantly clearer than 30.0. Therefore, a marked improvement is seen at least in the configuration having a density of 38.0 g / cm ³ . On the other hand, when the bulk of the second sheet 19 was 18 g / cm ³ , the clarity was poor and the wet-back was also frequent.

  It can be widely applied to absorbent articles such as a top sheet, a back sheet, an absorbent body interposed between them, and a second sheet interposed between the top sheet and the absorbent body. .

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Absorbent article 11 Top sheet 13 Back sheet 15 Absorber 19 Second sheet

Claims (6)

A liquid-permeable top sheet provided on one side in the thickness direction of the absorbent article, a liquid-impermeable or water-repellent back sheet provided on the other side in the thickness direction, and a liquid interposed therebetween A holding member, and a liquid-permeable second sheet interposed between the top sheet and the absorbing member, wherein the second sheet is a bulky sheet having a density of 20 to 40 g / cm ³ , The absorbent article, wherein the top sheet and the second sheet are associated with each other by a concave emboss having a predetermined pattern recessed from the top sheet toward the second sheet.   The absorbent article according to claim 1, wherein the top sheet and the second sheet are fused by hot embossing.   The absorbent article according to claim 1 or 2, wherein, in addition to the top sheet and the second sheet, the absorbent member is also associated with each other by a concave emboss having the predetermined pattern. It said second sheet comprises a three-dimensional crimping fiber fineness 2.0～4.0Dtex, absorbent according to claim 1 or 3 a basis weight of air-through nonwoven fabric 20 to 40 g / m ² Goods.   The absorbent article according to claim 4, wherein the three-dimensional crimped fibers are made of at least two kinds of resins made of a polyolefin resin and / or a polyester resin.   The absorbent article according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein each pattern constituting the predetermined pattern has a size that fits in four sides of 12 mm on a side, and an interval between adjacent patterns is 12 mm or more. .

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