Laminated tufted good
OwnerJohn H. Beardeninventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An article of artificial athletic turf or other tufted good made of a fabric backing sheet having a top face and a bottom face and having yarn tufted through the backing such that yarn pile extends from the top face and yarn backloops are along the bottom face which are laminated and tuft locked by layers of polyethylene film that are separately transparent and opaque to the wavelength of a near infrared or visible energy. These polyethylene layers are placed against the backing bottom face, with the opaque layer nearest the backing, and near infrared or visible energy is projected through the transparent layer and into the opaque layer to melt the latter and cause the film layers to fuse to each other and further cause that combined film to fuse to the backing and yarn backloops and form a laminated turf product.
Claims11
A method for laminating a tufted backing sheet having a pile face from which yarn piles project and an opposing bottom face having some of its surface area overlaid by yarn backloops, the method comprising:
- placing an inner film that is substantially opaque to visible and near infrared energy over the backing sheet bottom face;
- placing an outer film that is substantially transparent to visible and near infrared energy over the inner film;
- urging the inner film into intimate contact with the backing sheet;
- and
- directing visible or near infrared energy through the outer film and into the inner film to melt the inner film and cause it to infuse into the interstices of the fibers of the backing sheet and yarn backloops.
A method for laminating a tufted backing sheet having a pile face from which yarn piles project and an opposing bottom face having some of its surface area overlaid by yarn backloops, the method comprising:
- placing a film that is substantially transparent to visible and near infrared energy over the backing sheet bottom face;
- urging the film toward the backing sheet and yarn backloops;
- and
- directing visible or near infrared energy through the film.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.