Breathable elastic web
AssigneeTredegar Film Products Corporation
InventorsAndrew Peacock, Jeffrey Middlesworth, Matthew O'Sickey, Todd Skochdopole, Tze Chung
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An elastic web that can be made breathable upon application of a tensile force such as would be encountered in certain applications, such as in absorbent articles and other hygienic or non-hygienic articles, and bandages is described. Breathability is achieved by insertion into the web of slits whose open area increases upon application of a force on the web acting along the major axis of said slits.
Claims20
A slitted stretchable web comprising a top surface and a bottom surface, the web comprising one or more regions having a plurality of slits, wherein:
- i. each slit connects the top surface to the bottom surface;
- ii. the slits are characterized by a major and a minor axes and are aligned with their major axes oriented at an angle within 45° of a common direction on the web surface;
- iii. the slits open when a tensile force is applied to the web along the common direction;
- iv. the slitted stretchable web has an unload force ratio of greater than about 0.25;
- and
- v. the slitted stretchable web exhibits at least one feature selected from the group consisting of:
- (a) neck-in at 200% elongation of no more than about 30%;
- (b) peak load of at least about 75% of the peak load of the same web in an unslitted condition;
- (c) elongation at peak load of at least about 85% of the elongation at peak load of the same web in an unslitted condition;
- and
- (d) load at 50% or more elongation of at least about 95% of the load of the same web in an unslitted condition at the same elongation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.