System for manufacture of low density sheets rigidized with nylon fibers
OwnerMichael A. Pero, IIIinventor
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Abstract
A rigid nylon porous material sheet is produced by the adhesive bonding of kinked nylon fibers having lengths of 1 to 5 inches. These fibers are cut from melt spun nylon or harvested from clean carpet fibers by shearing. The adhesive used is glycol, which attacks nylon at 180° C. forming a gel on the surface of the kinked fibers, but does not attack the nylon fibers when the kinked fiber assembly is cooled to 150° C. to precipitate ultrafine nylon within the gel. The fiber assembly is heated to 160° C. to bond the nylon fibers. It is then washed in hot water to remove unused glycol. The other adhesive is polyurethane, which is applied to the kinked fibers using coupling agents of aqueous resorcinol and vinyl pyrrolidone.
Claims9
A method for manufacturing a rigid low-density nylon porous material sheet, comprising the steps of:
- a) utilizing melt-spun nylon fibers or nylon fibers harvested from recycled materials, the nylon fibers being chopped to lengths of 1 to 5 inches;
- b) passing the chopped nylon fibers through a slotted rotating disk to form kinks in the fibers;
- c) creating a mold which has the same length and width as the desired nylon sheet size but has a mold height at least twice that of the thickness of the desired nylon sheet;
- d) calculating the weight of the kinked fibers needed to fill the mold and produce a desired sheet thickness and sheet porosity;
- e) filling the mold with the calculated weight of kinked fibers and compressing the filled mold by application of pressure using a plate to bring the thickness of the sheet to the desired value and form an assembled fiber sheet preform;
- f) removing the adhesive treated assembled fiber sheet preform from the mold;
- g) immersing the assembled fiber sheet preform in an adhesive solution and draining excessive adhesive;
- h) heating said adhesive treated assembled fiber sheet preform to a temperature at 180° C. for sufficient time period to cure the adhesive, thereby bonding the nylon fibers;
- i) removing the rigid porous nylon sheet and cooling the nylon sheet;
- whereby the rigid porous the nylon sheet has closed air cells imparting the sheet with thermal resistance and sound attenuation properties, so that the sheet may be used in building construction as well as decorative applications.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.