Patent ID: 7534928
Filing Date: 2009-05-19
Classification: A61F

Abstract:
1. A topsheet for absorbent articles used on the side of an absorbent article to be brought into contact with a wearer's body, which has an air permeability of 100 to 500 ml/cm 2 ·sec or more in the horizontal direction under a pressure of 10 cN/cm 2 , with a ratio of the air permeability under 10 cN/cm 2 in the machine direction to that in the cross direction being 0.6 to 1.7, and which has a first fiber layer and a second fiber layer both comprising a fiber aggregate, said second fiber layer comprising thermally shrinkable fiber, said first fiber layer and said second fiber layer being partially thermally fusion-bonded together to form fusion-bonded joints in a prescribed pattern and a large number of the fusion-bonded joints are almost equally spaced in a regular configuration with the fusion-bonded joints having a thickness t of 0.1 to 0.5 mm, said first fiber layer forming protrusions in portions other than said fusion-bonded joints by the heat shrinkage of said thermally shrinkable fiber of said second fiber layer wherein each protrusion is dome-shaped and filled with the fibers making the first fiber layer, the portions of said protrusions adjoining said fusion-bonded joints being denser and stiffer than other portions of said protrusions, and the first fiber layer bulging upward in areas that are surrounded by fusion-bonded joints to form a great number of the protrusions, said second fiber layer being substantially flat in portions other than said fusion-bonded joints, and wherein a ratio of the substantial thickness T′ of the protrusions to the thickness t of the fusion-bonded joints (T′/t) is 5 to 50.