Patent ID: 9714483
Date: 2017-07-25
CPC Classifications: B29C,B29L,D03D,D21F

Claim:
1. An endless fabric belt, the belt comprising: cross-direction threads and machine direction threads intersecting said cross-direction threads, at least some of said machine direction threads and/or machine cross-direction threads being formed by yarns composed substantially of a thermoplastic polymer material transparent to light of a given wavelength; said threads, prior to being formed into the endless belt, together forming an intermediate open fabric belt with two fore-ends having end portions of said machine direction threads to be brought together in each case in pairs for subsequently forming the endless belt; a seam region connecting said two fore-ends together, with said end portions of said machine direction threads forming junction points and being interwoven with machine cross-direction threads; wherein at least some of said yarns in said seam region are connected to one another in a materially integral manner by way of a material absorbing light at the given wavelength and arranged at yarn contact points and by the action of the light at the yarn contact points; said seam region containing a plurality of mutually spaced-apart, strip-shaped fabric portions extending in the cross direction and having said junction points and said yarn contact points connected to one another in a materially integral manner arranged therein, and in each case a strip-shaped fabric portion without junction points formed between two directly adjacent fabric portions having said junction points; and wherein the strip-shaped fabric portions containing the junction points have an extent in the machine direction in a range from 5 to 60 mm and said junction points are distributed throughout the strip-shaped fabric portions and offset in the machine direction relative to one another.