Patent Application
20120096690
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fabric, especially to a fastening fabric structure having the fastening effect similar to the traditional VELCRO by a weaving machine.
2. Description of Related Art
VELCRO, a leading brand of hook and loop fastening fabric, as a conventional fastening or gripping fabrics can be found in our living environment and widely used in garment, leather goods, shoes, diaper, helmet, etc. The major reason is that the VELCRO or other loop and hook fastening fabric are convenient in fastening.
However, there are some unsatisfied drawbacks in using VELCRO or other loop and hook fastening fabric, for example, the VELCRO, stiff in texture, has a certain thickness and is difficult produced and directly connected to the fabric. Normally, it should be sewing or other ways to attach or connect the VELCRO on the articles which using said VELCRO. Therefore, if the articles using VELCRO requires to be a soft in texture or less thick than the thickness of VELCRO, due to the texture of VELCRO material, the VELCRO, the VELCRO is difficult to meet such requirements.
A conventional loop and hook fastener fabricated by a weaving machine includes a loop and a hook corresponding to the loop. Take the U.S. Pat. No. 5,231,738 as an example, said patent has disclosed a mixed loop/hoop separable fastener and as shown in FIG. 2b of said specification, the loop and the hook of the mixed loop/hoop separable fastener are provided on the same surface, and each loop has the dimension of 11 deniers and the density is 8,760 loops per square inch; however the corresponding hook is monofilament having the dimension of 330 deniers with the density of 290 hooks per square inch.
Take the U.S. Pat. No. 6,099,932 as another example, said patent has disclosed a manufacturing method of a loop fabric of hook and loop type fastener, and as shown in FIG. 4 of said specification, the loop of the hook and loop type fastener is fabricated by monofilament having the dimension around 10 to 150 deniers and processed with a brushing treatment.
Take the Taiwan Utility Model Publication No. 479477 as one another example, said patent had disclosed thin base fabrics having loops surface knitted by monofilament, wherein a special knitted for forming curving floating circles is disclosed for providing a loop and hook fastening tape with thinner thickness. In view of the mentioned patents, the thickness of the VELCRO or other conventional loop and hook fastening fabric brings certain limitation and inconvenience when being used.
Beside the above-mentioned thickness issue, there is still a problem of unintended adherence. The reason is that the loops of convention fastening fabrics are too large in dimension which providing the opportunity of small things to insert through or fall within the loops. Moreover, when being washed and rinsed, the hooks of the conventional fastening fabric may damage other clothes, e.g. generating problems such as yarn loosening or breaking. The three aforesaid patents disclosed the manufacturing method of the loop and hook fastening fabric fabricated by a weaving machine and the dimension of the components provided, and one another feature of the three aforesaid patents is that the hook components are all thick and hard monofilament with hook-like or mushroom-like shapes.
Further, Taiwan Utility Model Patent No. M263013 (equivalent to U.S. Pat. No. 7,231,789 B2), issued to the present inventor, has discloses a fastening fabric structure entitled “Snapping Fabrics”. According to this invention, a hairiness treatment of brushing and shearing is applied to form fibriform hook. However, employing a brushing technique to form fibriform hook cannot keep fibriform hook in direction, lowering the fastening ability. Further, the fibriform hook tends to be tangled together, forming pilling and loosing the fastening ability.
In addition, the Taiwan Patent Publish No. 201023784, published on Jul. 1, 2010, applied by the inventor of the present invention discloses a novel fastening fabric structure. The micro-fibriform loops of the fastening fabric are the micro-fiber yarn of the plain structure fabric, after the micro-fibriform loop fabric is processed with a fiber splitting treatment, the micro-fibriform loops having restrain function are formed between the inter-knitting nodes of the yarn, as shown in
One primary object of the present invention is to provide a fastening fabric structure having a micro-fibriform loop fabric structure and a fibriform pile fabric structure wherein the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure has micro-fibriform loops erecting on the surface of the fabric, and erected and dispersed restrain fiber bundles are fabricated by processing a shearing treatment to the fibriform pile fabric structure; after a thermal treatment in an environment with suitable temperature, the restrain fiber bundles become erected restrain fiber bundles which are more dispersed and slightly curved. As such, the restrain fiber bundles of the fibriform pile fabric structure are prevented from tangling together, thereby increasing the adhering and fastening capability of the fastening fabric structure.
For achieving the mentioned object, one solution provided by the present invention is to provide a fastening fabric structure, which comprises:
a micro-fibriform loop fabric structure having micro-fibriform loops erected and protruded from the surface of the fabric, the micro-fibriform loops are fabricated by complex, textured micro-fiber yarn and split thereafter to form more and smaller micro fibers, so the micro fibers are enabled to fabricate erected and loosen micro-fibriform loops on the surface of the fabric;
a fibriform pile fabric structure having erected and dispersed restrain fiber bundles on the surface of the fabric, the restrain fiber bundles are fabricated by spun yarn or synthetic filament yarns being fabricated to fibriform pile loops then processed with a shearing treatment;
when the fibriform pile fabric structure and the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure are in contact, the erected restrain fiber bundles are fastened and restrained by the micro-fibriform loops thereby forming an adhering and fastening effect.
The present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art by reading the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof, with reference to the attached drawings, in which:
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
As shown in
Please refer to
As shown in
As such, the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 of the present invention is fabricated on a knitted or woven fabric with the micro-fibriform loops 11 then being processed with the fiber splitting treatment, so the micro fibers are enabled to fabricate erected and loosen micro-fibriform loops 11 on a surface of the fabric. Moreover, if the micro fibers contain thermal shrinking fibers, a shrinking level of 20%˜40% would be generated during the heating process of fiber splitting and dyeing, such that the micro fibers after being split become more loosened, thereby enhancing the fastening and adhering capability of the fastening fabric structure.
The texturing and fabricating means of the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 are as followings: (1) weft-knitting or warp-knitting to fabricate a knitted loop fabric; and (2) weaving to fabricate a woven loop fabric. The fiber splitting means can be a chemical or mechanical separation treatment, wherein the chemical separation treatment is to dissolve one of the materials through a chemical solvent and allow the other material to be remained, the mechanical separation treatment is to separate the two different material of complex fiber through a mechanical rubbing means.
Please refer to
In addition, the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 and the fibriform pile fabric structure 2 can be fabricated on a knitted or woven double-face loop structure for respectively fabricating or synchronously existing on different surfaces of the fabric.
Moreover, the fibers of the restrain fiber bundles 21 can be processed with a thermal treatment in an environment of 140˜190 Celsius degree, especially 160˜170 Celsius degree, for obtaining a more loosened and slightly curved fiber bundles, thereby being more easily to be fastened by the micro-fibriform loops 11 of the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1. The restrain fiber bundles 21 has a height of 1 mm˜5 mm, preferably to be 2 mm˜4 mm. As such, the aforesaid weaving and fabricating means of the fibriform pile fabric structure 2 enables the restrain fiber bundles 21 to provide a function similar to the hooks of a conventional VELCRO tape.
As mentioned above, the fabrication means of the fastening fabric structure provided by the present invention is weaving or knitting, if an essential fabric structure 3 of the fastening fabric is added with elastic fibers, such as the elastic fibers under the trademark of Lycra, the elasticity of the fastening fabric structure can be increased, thereby more suitable being applied for the purpose of wrapping and bonding for a protection equipment.
As mentioned above, the fibriform pile fabric structure 2 and the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 can be respectively fabricated on two different fabrics, and a high molecular elastic film can be provided between the two fabrics, so through adhering back to back, a highly-elastic fabric with its front and rear sides being able to adhere with each other can be fabricated, thereby providing a stronger bonding and restraining function.
In practice, when the fibriform pile fabric structure 2 and the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 are in contact face to face, the plural erected restrain fiber bundles 21 of the fibriform pile fabric structure 2 are fastened and restrained by the micro-fibriform loops 11 fabricated after the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 being processed with the fiber splitting treatment, so there is a large friction force generated for forming an adhering and fastening state, thereby achieving the adhering and fastening effect similar to the effect provided by the conventional VELCRO tapes.
In addition, the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 and the fibriform pile fabric structure 2 of the fastening fabric structure provided by the present invention can be altered and applied to different purposes according to the actual needs. As shown in
One feature of the fastening fabric structure provided by the present invention is that the restrain fiber bundles 21 of the fibriform pile fabric structure 2 utilize erected non-hook fibers having the dimension around 3 deniers contained in the 50˜300 deniers yarn to replace the monofilament hooks of conventional VELCRO tapes having the dimension around 325 deniers; the micro-fibriform loops 11 of the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure 1 are erected and protruded from the surface of a fabric, and utilize micro-fiber loops having the dimension around 0.1 denier contained in the 50˜200 deniers yarn to replace the monofilament loops having the dimension around 20 deniers of the conventional VELCRO tapes. Therefore, the dimension of the restrain fiber bundles 21 of the present invention is about 100 times smaller than the hooks of a conventional VELCRO tapes, and the density of the restrain fiber bundles 21 is 275 times greater than the hooks of the conventional VELCRO tapes; the dimension of the micro fibers of the micro-fibriform loop 11 provided by the present invention is 200 times smaller than the loops of the conventional VELCRO tapes, and the density of the micro-fibriform loops 11 is 150 times greater than the loops of the conventional VELCRO tapes. Thus, the softness and fiber dimension of the fastening fabric structure provided by the present invention are substantially the same as fabrics used in daily life, and through the large amount of micro fibers generating the high-strength adhering and fastening force, the present invention provides a fabric having the adhering and fastening function without needs of additional adhesion or fasten units.
Therefore, by adopting the present invention, the advantages and effects can be achieved are:
(1) The thickness of the fastening fabric structure is greatly reduced, especially the micro-fibriform loops of the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure are fabricated by micro fibers, thereby achieving extreme thin in dimension.
(2) The fastening fabric structure forms the loops and pile directly on the surface of fabrics without base cloth or base substrate, because the fastening fabric itself is a soft texture equipped with adhering and fastening function, with the softness and adhering capability provided by the fabric itself, when being used in a band strip, the strong adhesion is continuously provided during the binding and wrapping process, so a complete adhering effect is provided, and slides are prevented between the binding and wrapping layers, thereby providing a firmer and more stable binding and wrapping effect and also providing comfort.
(3) The dimension of the restrain fiber bundles fabricated on the fastening fabric structure is similar to nature cotton fiber, especially micro-fibriform loop is much smaller than existed nature cotton fiber, so the user would not feel irritated on his/her skin and foreign articles inserting or falling within fabrics is prevented, or other clothes or fabrics are protected from being damaged when washed and rinsed together with the fastening fabric.
(4) The restrain fiber bundles of the fibriform pile fabric structure of the fastening fabric structure are erected and non-hook fibers, so the micro-fibriform loops of the micro-fibriform loop fabric structure are prevented from being damaged when being mutually adhered; and the restrain fiber bundles and the micro-fibriform loops allows even distribution of force through the whole contact surface area of surface and enhancing the fastening power and the durability of the fastening fabric structure, and meeting the essential requirement of repeated use for environmental-friendly materials.
(5) The restrain fiber bundles and the micro-fibriform loops of the fastening fabric structure can be respectively fabricated on the front and rear sides of one single fabric, so not only the thickness can be reduced, the softness of the fastening fabric structure can also be greatly improved, and the fastening fabric structure is equipped with an excellent water absorbing property, thereby being able to be fabricated to products such like a scarf, shawl and towel which can be freely adhered.
(6) The fastening fabric structure can be made in a very similar or even the same way as making an ordinary cloth, and the shape thereof can be freely tailored and equipped with whole-surface fastening without any other closure means; when used as band strip, one single piece of band strip can be used to warp different parts of the body; due to a wide range of fastening application, the invention is a breakthrough in fastening fabric industry.
Various modifications and other embodiments of the inventions set forth herein will come to mind to one skilled in the art to which these inventions pertain having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the inventions are not to be limited to the specific examples of the embodiments disclosed and that modifications and other embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 099135686 | Oct 2010 | TW | national |
