TY - JOUR
T1 - Sintering of compound nonwovens by forced convection of hot air
AU - Staszel, C.
AU - Sett, S.
AU - Yarin, A. L.
AU - Pourdeyhimi, B.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center ( NCRC ), Grant No. 14-163 . The authors appreciate the useful discussions with Alexander Kolbasov.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/10/1
Y1 - 2016/10/1
N2 - Sintering and interlocking of model nonwoven materials composed of a mixture of polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers by means of forced convection of hot air through their pores is studied experimentally and theoretically. PCL has a much lower melting point than PAN, and the air temperature was sufficiently high to melt the former, while the latter stayed solid. These molten PCL fibers became a binder and conglutinated the PAN matrix, enhancing stiffness. This was demonstrated by measuring the effect of heat treatment on the resulting Young's modulus of these compound nonwovens, as well as by the corresponding micro-morphological changes revealed by scanning electron microscopy. It was also shown that heating past the melting point of the binding fibers (PCL) would not further increase stiffness of the nonwovens, neither would heating for longer periods of times. A theoretical model describing the heating process was developed and tested experimentally. The model was verified using poly(ethylene terephthalate) PET nonwovens, which revealed good agreement of the data with the theoretical predictions.
AB - Sintering and interlocking of model nonwoven materials composed of a mixture of polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers by means of forced convection of hot air through their pores is studied experimentally and theoretically. PCL has a much lower melting point than PAN, and the air temperature was sufficiently high to melt the former, while the latter stayed solid. These molten PCL fibers became a binder and conglutinated the PAN matrix, enhancing stiffness. This was demonstrated by measuring the effect of heat treatment on the resulting Young's modulus of these compound nonwovens, as well as by the corresponding micro-morphological changes revealed by scanning electron microscopy. It was also shown that heating past the melting point of the binding fibers (PCL) would not further increase stiffness of the nonwovens, neither would heating for longer periods of times. A theoretical model describing the heating process was developed and tested experimentally. The model was verified using poly(ethylene terephthalate) PET nonwovens, which revealed good agreement of the data with the theoretical predictions.
KW - Forced air convection
KW - Modulus of elasticity
KW - Nonwovens
KW - Sintering
KW - Transient temperature distribution
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84973131348&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.05.066
DO - 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.05.066
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84973131348
SN - 0017-9310
VL - 101
SP - 327
EP - 335
JO - International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
JF - International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
ER -