Composite elastic material with ribbon-shaped filaments

A composite elastic material, comprising:

• an anisotropic elastomeric polymer structure including at least one layer of elastomeric ribbon-shaped elements and at least one layer of elastomeric meltblown fibers bonded to at least a portion of the elastomeric ribbon-shaped elements;
• and
• at least one extensible layer joined using point bonds at spaced-apart locations to the ribbon-shaped elements of the anisotropic elastomeric polymer structure so that the extensible layer gathers or retracts when the anisotropic elastomeric polymer structure is relaxed;
• wherein the ribbon-shaped elements are wider than the point bonds.

A method of making a composite elastic material, comprising the steps of:

• forming a layer of ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements in machine direction alignment on a conveyor;
• stretching the layer of ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements;
• joining the stretched layer of ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements to a gatherable layer, and bonding the layers together at spaced-apart locations using point bonds, wherein the ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements are wider than the point bonds;
• and
• relaxing the layer of ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements so that the gatherable layer gathers between the bonding locations.

A method of making a composite elastic material, comprising the steps of:

• forming a layer of ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements in machine direction alignment on a conveyor;
• and
• joining the layer of ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements to a stretchable layer using point bonds;
• wherein the ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements are wider than the point bonds, and the stretchable layer is in a stretched state when the ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements are stretched, and is in a retracted state when the ribbon-shaped elastomeric elements are relaxed.