Abstract:

In order to explore predictability of pore size of microfiber nonwovens, polyester(PET)/ polyamide 6 (PA6) hollow segmented-pie microfiber nonwovens were fibrillated via hydroentangling. A modified pore sizes model was proposed based on the account of fiber geometry and structure properties. The results show that the bicomponent fibers split into microfibers under the action of hydroentangling, and the fibers entangle each other in the horizontal direction. Moreover, the relationships between pore sizes, splitting rate and fiber diameters were theoretically analyzed by the modified pore sizes. In addition, the results also show that the main factor of affecting pore sizes inside nonwovens is splitting rate. A comparison was made between theoretical and experimental pore sizes of samples, and the results indicated that modified pore sizes model is good for predicting pore sizes inside PET/PA6 hollow segmented-pie microfiber nonwovens.

Key words: nonwoven, microfiber, pore size distribution, pore size prediction