Papermakers wet press felt having high contact, resilient base fabric with hollow monofilaments

A wet press felt comprising:

• a woven base fabric having a paper carrying side;
• said base fabric including a first system of yarns interwoven with a second system of yarns such that said system yarns predominate on the paper carrying side of the fabric;
• said first system yarns being hollow, synthetic monofilament yarns having an O-shaped cross-section and an internal core void of at least 16%, being compressible from a substantially round cross-section to a fully flattened cross-section when subjected to nip pressures of at least 200 psi, and being sufficiently resilient to rebound to an uncompressed state after passing through a press nip;
• and
• said base fabric being woven and finished such that in said finished base fabric:
• portions of said first system yarns which contact said second system yarns have at least a partially flattened cross-section, and
• said first system yarns remain substantially unflattened in cross-section thereby defining resiliently compressible cushioning for enhancing wet press felt performance in dewatering an aqueous paper web through press nip.

A wet press felt comprising:

• a base fabric;
• a fibrous batt needled on at least a paper carrying side of said base fabric;
• said base fabric including a system of machine direction (MD) yarns selectively interwoven with a system of cross machine direction (CMD) yarns such that said CMD yarns predominate on said paper carrying base fabric side;
• said MD yarns being twisted monofilament nylon yarns;
• said CMD yarns being hollow, nylon monofilament yarns having an O-shaped cross-section and an internal core void of approximately 18% being compressible from a substantially round cross-section to a fully flattened cross-section when subjected to nip pressures of at least 200 psi and being sufficiently resilient to rebound to an uncompressed state after passing through a press nip;
• and
• said base fabric being woven such that said CMD yarns define three yarn floats on at least said paper carrying side of said base fabric and finished such that in said finished base fabric said CMD yarns remain substantially unflattened in cross-section thereby defining a cushioning surface on said paper carrying side of said base fabric which is resiliently compressible for enhancing wet press felt performance in dewatering an aqueous paper web through a press nip.