Patent ID: 6716776
Filing Date: 2004-04-06
Classification: D01F,D04H,D06N,Y10S,Y10T

Abstract:
An artificial leather comprising (i) a nonwoven fabric made of filaments, which comprises filaments formed from a fiber-forming thermoplastic polymer and which satisfies all of the following conditions (A) to (D);(A) fiber bundles are present in a range of 5-70 per centimeter in any cross-section parallel to the direction of thickness of the nonwoven fabric; (B) the total area occupied by the fiber bundles is in a range of 5-70% of the cross-sectional area of any cross-section perpendicular to the direction of thickness of the nonwoven fabric; (C) The apparent density is 0.10-0.50 g/cm3; and (D) cut ends of the fibers on the nonwoven fabric surface are present in a range of 5-100 per mm2 of surface area; wherein the filaments are fine denier filaments which are obtained from splittable multicomponent filaments comprising a polymer with two or more components, and satisfy all of the following conditions (E), (G), (H):(E) the denier of the filaments is 0.01-0.5 de; (G) the average area of space in any cross-section of the nonwoven fabric is 70-300 &mgr;m2 as measured by a method of image analysis with a scanning electron microscope; and (H) the structure has uniformity represented by a standard deviation of space area in any cross-section of the nonwoven fabric of 200-450 &mgr;m2 as measured by a method of image analysis with a scanning electron microscope; and (ii) a polymeric elastomer impregnated therein, which artificial leather satisfies all of the following conditions (I) to (N):(I) the fiber bundles are present in a range of 5-70 per centimeter of width in any cross-section parallel to the direction of thickness of the artificial leather; (J) the total area occupied by the fiber bundles is in a range of 5-70% of the cross-sectional area of any cross-section perpendicular to the direction of thickness of the artificial leather; (K) At least a portion of the impregnated polymeric elastomer is polymeric elastomer which is not fixed among the fibers; (L) the tensile stress at 20% elongation (&sgr;20) in the warp direction and the tensile stress at 20% elongation (&sgr;20) in the weft direction of the artificial leather are each in the range of 1.5-10 kg/cm; (M) the ratio of the 20% elongation (&sgr;20) in the warp direction to the bending resistance (Rb (g/cm)) for the artificial leather and the ratio of the 20% elongation (&sgr;20) in the weft direction to the bending resistance (Rb (g/cm)) for the artificial leather have an average value of 3-30; and (N) the apparent density of the artificial leather is 0.20-0.60 g/cm3; and wherein tahe artificial leather satisfies all of the following conditions (O) to (Q):(O) the fiber bundles are present in a range of 10-50 per centimeter in any cross-section parallel to the direction of thickness of the artificial leather; (P) the average area of space in any cross-section of the artificial leather is 70-140 &mgr;m2 as measured by a method of image analysis with a scanning electron microscope; and (Q) the structure has uniformity represented by a standard deviation of space area in any cross-section of the artificial leather of 80-200 &mgr;m2 as measured by a method of image analysis with a scanning electron microscope.