Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

Development of Nursing Care Sheets of
Cellulosic Nonwoven Fabrics for Ageing Society

T. Enomae*, R. Asakawa and F. Onabe
Dept. of Bio-material Sciences, Grad School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan

M. Yoshizaki, H. Fukasawa, K. Hiyoshi and T. Kurata
Paper Industrial Technology Section, Fuji Industrial Research Institute of Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

ABSTRACTFor care of the elderly in a rapidly aging society, a new type of nonwoven fabric care sheet
made from cellulosic fibers laminated with a plastic film has been developed. Fiber orientation,
friction, tensile strength, local deformation distribution during a tensile test and water absorbency
were examined, with a view to practical application. The best fiber mixture ratio in the trial sheets
was concluded to be 75% Manila hemp and 25% rayon fibers. In comparison with a linen cloth theaddition of rayon fibers at about this ratio gives the most satisfactory properties in terms of soft
touch and sensory smoothness to the nonwoven fabric as well as not being slippery. It also gives
relatively high water absorbency and moderate elongation under tensile force providing
shock-resistance, in spite of a rather low tensile strength, to the nonwoven fabric. Uniquely, a new
method to analyze the tensile deformation distribution of nonwoven fabrics using a pattern-matching
technique has been developed and demonstrated. Using this method it was found that, during tensile
deformation in the machine direction, the addition of rayon fibers allows even elongation in that
direction but increases contraction in the cross direction.

KEY WORDS
Care sheet, Friction, Hydroentangled nonwoven fabrics, Manila hemp, Rayon, Pattern matching,Tensile deformation distribution, Water absorbency

Contact address: Yayoi 1-1-1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, JAPANTel +81-3-5841-8199

Fax +81-3-5841-5271

1

e-mail enomae@psl.fp.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

INTRODUCTION
Senior care is one of the important issues of modern society. Especially in Japan, aged
people are commonly cared for at home by their family. Family caregivers are usually also aged andreduction of the burden is an emergent issue. As a paper-like cellulosic material, a new type of
nonwoven fabrics sheet for the purpose of nursing care was investigated and developed. The targetof our new composite material is a disposable bed sheet with water absorbing property on the
nonwoven side and waterproofing property on the laminate film side. In comparison to somesynthetic fibers, cellulosic fibers can provide comfort in contact with skin owing to their abundant
water absorbency and retention of moisture, with which vomit, urine, perspiration are assumed
practically. So, this material can be applied to any type of bedside care other than senior care. As
raw fiber materials, a mixture of Manila hemp and rayon fibers was used. To evaluate the trial caresheets, we examined fiber orientation, friction, tensile strength, local deformation distribution during
a tensile test and water absorbency.
In particular, image analysis for local deformation distribution is a unique way to analyze
tensile behavior. Some researchers have investigated tensile deformation using image analysis
techniques such as texture analysis to identify properties of nonwoven fabrics. Kim et. al [2]recorded video images of thermally bonded nonwovens from polypropylene fibers during tensile
deformation and calculated changes of fiber orientation distribution function by image analysis.
They revealed that fiber reorientation progresses during elongation more noticeably in the Cross
Direction (CD) than in the Machine Direction (MD). Fiber reorientation depends on the anisotropyof the structure and the bond pattern. Thorr et. al [6] designed a sensor capable of locally measuring
the mass per unit area of nonwoven geotextiles using illumination of an integrating sphere. By using
texture analysis, they calculated energy for homogeneity degree, entropy for disorder degree andinertia for local variation degree from co-occurrence matrices. They also exhibited that theorientation distribution curve corresponded well to the vertical orientation in progress of fibers
during a tensile test of a needle-punched nonwoven. Berkalp et. al [1] used contrast, namely, inertia
functions calculated from the co-occurrence matrix and power spectrum for texture analysis offabrics hydroentangled at different pressures.
The method we applied in this work is different from those described above and allows
calculation of displacement of every block in a virtual grid imposed on images of a nonwoven fabric.
Compared to mean changes over the whole area like fiber orientation distribution, measurement of
displacement of actual individual blocks is characteristic of this method, and the purpose of thiswork includes this measurement in addition to the evaluation of the trial care sheets of cellulosic
nonwoven fabrics .

2

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

EXPERIMENTAL
Materials
Manila hemp fibers and rayon fibers were used to prepare nonwoven sheets. Manila hemp
fibers were unbeaten and had a mean length of 3.0 mm and a mean width of about 15 µm. Rayonfibers had a mean length of 6.0 mm and a mean width of about 10 µm. To prepare care sheets, plastic
films of polyurethane and low-density polyethylene were used for laminating nonwoven fabrics.
Care sheet preparation
A pulp web was formed from the cellulosic fibers on the forming part of a pilot paper
machine, hydroentangled at the end of that part and dried on a drum dryer continuously. The orificeof the water jet device was 0.1 mm in diameter and the jets were aligned at intervals of 1.0 mm. The
hydraulic pressure was 0.98 MPa at the first manifold and 3.92 MPa at the second manifold.The
nonwoven webs were laminated with a plastic film in a process separate from the nonwoven forming
line. Table 1 shows manufacturing conditions and properties. For comparison in frictional
properties, a commercial product made from wood pulp fibers with a polyethylene laminate, i.e.
Water protection sheet, Cellcomb AB, Sweden, was also measured. In prior to the following tests,
every sample was conditioned at 23 °C and 50 % relative humidity.
Fiber orientation
The fabric structure was examined in terms of fiber orientation by X-ray diffractometry.
Cellulose crystal face (004) is aligned in perpendicular to the fiber axis because cellulose molecules
are aligned in parallel to the fiber axis. In this method, this property was used to determine fiber
orientation from the diffraction peak intensity. For in-plane orientation measurement, fiveoverlapped sheets of the fabrics were mounted as a sample so that the fabric plane was perpendicular
to the plane of the incident and reflected X-ray beams. Radiation was impinged on one side of thesample and was reflected to the other side so that the X-ray beam passed transversely. The sample
was rotated in its plane while the angle formed by the sample plane and the incident X-ray beam wasmaintained. The degree of fiber orientation was defined from area of (004) peak due to the crystal
part (A) and base line area due to the amorphous part (B) as A/(A+B). X-ray diffraction patterns
were recorded in the 30 to 40 degrees of 2θ range with X-ray source from Cu-Kα target using a
X-ray diffractometer (RINT2000, Rigaku Corporation, Japan).
Tensile test and local deformation distribution
Care sheets in use are subject to a wide variety of forces and, in particular, to tensile force.
To evaluate mechanical strength and durability of the nonwoven fabrics, tensile strength andelongation were measured following ISO 9073-3:1989 except that the width and span of test pieces
were 15 mm and 100 mm, respectively. Ten test pieces were tested and the load elongation curves
with the results closest to the mean values were shown in the graph.
In-plane local deformation distribution during a tensile test was also determined using a

3

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

pattern matching application developed in the laboratory of Univ. of Tokyo [4]. This prototype
system consists of a conventional tensile tester (UTM-100-Ⅲ, Orientec, Japan), a CCD camera(XC-77, SONY, Japan) , an electric bulb for illumination at a low angle and the software for image
capture and image analysis. In pattern matching, one of two images to be compared was divided into
small rectangular blocks. The post-deformation image was searched for a block with a similar
pattern to a certain block of the initial image taken as a template block while the block frame is
moved pixel for pixel. The similarity Sfg is judged based on the inner product of the two block
images as a vector according to Equation 1.

S fg =∫ ∫ f ( x, y) g ( x, y)dxdy∫ ∫ f ( x, y ) dxdy ∫ ∫ g ( x, y) dxdy
2

2

(1),

where f(x, y) and g (x, y) mean gray levels at each coordinate (x, y) of the two block images f andg, respectively. A five-fold interpolation with the high-resolution bi-cubic spline interpolation
function [5] was applied to determine the deformation distribution with five-fold resolution.
Image capture was achieved on nonwoven fabric samples without a plastic laminate cut to15 mm in width. Five test pieces were subjected to the tensile test mentioned in the following way. A
test piece was clamped with a span of 50 mm. The recorded region was almost 12 mm in width by 9mm in height. Low angle illumination was used for emphasizing light and shade due to undulating
fabric surfaces. The test piece was elongated at 10 mm/min to 1.96 N load and the elongation was
stopped. Then, concurrent with restarting elongation, reflected surface images were recorded every
0.5 s for about 15 s. Recorded images had a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels. In analysis, the initialbitmapped image, namely, immediately after the cease at 1.96 N was set to time 0 and displacementof every 8 by 8 pixels block were calculated. In the case that displacement a certain block is toolarge to detect the exact destination after a long time of elongation, judgment was made according to
how much its vector is similar in length and direction to those of its eight adjacent blocks. Test
pieces were clamped between the upper fixed clamp and the lower movable clamp, so a downward
shift of the whole captured image was observed with every sample. In the diagram of local
deformation distribution, the displacement of the top center block was set to zero and the relative
displacement of every block to that of the top center block was determined. In results, diagrams of
local deformation distribution comprising many arrows were superimposed on video images at
elapsed times of 5 s or 10 s. Arrows were drawn so that the length was five times as long as true
displacement. Influences of fiber mixture ratio and tensile direction, that is, MD or CD were
examined.
Frictional properties
On the assumption that the care sheets would be used for bedridden elderly, friction between

4Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

plain-woven bed linen and the care sheets was measured with a sensory friction tester, KES-SE(KatoTech Co., Ltd., Japan). To measure tactile quality of the nonwoven fabrics, a wire-woundcontact object was used as an opposite material. The wire was wound at similar intervals to that offingerprints. To measure coefficients of friction between a bed linen cloth and the nonwoven fabricside or film side, a plain-woven bed linen cloth made from 65 % polyester and 35 % cotton with athread count of 140 in the frictional scan direction was mounted on the wire-wound contact object.
Eight test piece pairs were tested.
Water absorption properties
The rate of water absorption through a slit of 1mm by 5 mm was determined. The watersupply head with the slit was mounted on a fabric surface. Transferred water volume was measured
by tracing movement of the meniscus formed in a glass capillary connected with the head as the
opposite end. This apparatus named Automatic Scanning Absorptometer (Kumagai Riki Kogyo,
Japan) was originally developed as a spiral-scan Bristow apparatus [3]. In this work, however, thehead was kept on the same location of the fabrics and transferred water volume was recorded
continuously. Four test pieces were tested for each sample.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 1 shows X-ray diffraction patterns of nonwoven fabrics mounted at different rotation
angles in the plane of the fabrics. At 90 degrees, that is, when MD of the fabric was in the plane of
the incident and reflected X-ray beams, (004) peak exhibited the highest intensity. As the fabric wasrotated and its CD approached the X-ray plane, the peak intensity decreased. This result means thatthe water jet rearranged fibers so they ran in the direction of the web processing although the web
had been actually a handsheet with no fiber orientation. The mechanism seems to be that the water
jet drags and pushes apart fibers just like a needle working mechanically.
Figure 2 shows a comparison in fiber orientation between the nonwoven fabric and copy
paper as a representative of common paper. The distance from the graph origin to each data point
indicates the relative intensity of fiber orientation at each angle. The degree was lower for the fabricat all of the angles merely due to a different absolute mass of fibers involved in the X-ray diffraction
measurement, but the MD/CD ratio was coincidentally very similar between them. Consequently,
water jet entanglement was found to orient fibers in the direction of the processing.
Figure 3 shows kinetic coefficient of friction (MIU) and its mean deviation (MMD)
between nonwoven surface and the fingerprint contact object. The MIU tended to decrease withincrease in Manila hemp ratio while the MMD significantly increased with it. Soft fibers, that is,rayon in this case, are considered to give high friction because soft surfaces under load deform easily
to interlock with stainless wires of the fingerprint contact object. However, nonwoven fabrics
surfaces made from Manila hemp fibers have periodically-aligned openings more distinctly in MD
than those including rayon fibers. These openings of rigid fibers are difficult to deform and are likely

5Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

to give periodic variation to friction. Consequently, addition of soft rayon fibers can give soft touchand sensory smoothness to nonwoven fabrics as well as non-slipperiness.
Figure 4 shows MIU of surfaces of nonwoven fabric side and the two kinds of laminate
film side. The nonwoven fabric surface rich in rigid Manila hemp fibers gave a high MIU value
against a bed linen cloth as well as against the fingerprint contact object shown in the previous figure.
But, irrespective of the Manila hemp ratio, its MIU values were lower than those of the polyethylene
film and much higher than those of the polyurethane film. This result implies thatpolyurethane-laminate care sheets slip on bed linen very easily, but polyethylene-laminate sheets slip
less on bed linen when the care sheets are used with the nonwoven fabric side in contact with agarment. This tendency agreed with a result of the subjective test using the sense of touch by 10
examinees. The MIU value of the polyethylene side of the commercial product was lower than
expected, possibly due to the rigidity of high-density polyethylene used as a laminate film.
Figure 5 shows mean values of tensile breaking strength of the nonwoven fabrics withdifferent fiber ratios. Figure 6 shows a representative load-elongation curve of each fabric sample.
The vertical axis represents load per unit width and basis weight, which has the same dimension withtensile index. As found in the preliminary test, water jet processing reduced tensile strength of the
web by 50 % in MD and 70 % in CD for 100 % hemp nonwoven fabrics. As the ratio of Manila
hemp fibers increased, the breaking strength increased remarkably and the plateau region shortened.
Figures 7 to 10 shows tensile deformation distribution of nonwoven fabrics with the threeratios of fiber mixture. The top images of those figures show video images of nonwoven fabrics 5 or
10 seconds after the beginning of tensile elongation in either direction. The bottom images include
many overlapped arrows indicating local displacement. Each image is a representative one of several
runs for the same sample. As shown in Fig. 7, during a tensile deformation in MD, a nonwoven
fabric composed of 100 % Manila hemp shrank in CD so that the left and right ends came together tothe center because buckling occurred along a vertical line in a little right of the center. Verticaldisplacement is not observed with this nonwoven, as the arrows show, due to the whole shiftdownward. This is because a crack occurred in other parts of the sheet out of field of view of thisrange. Therefore, elongation does not occur evenly throughout the fabric, and breakage occurs inweak parts.
As shown by arrows in Fig. 8, during tensile deformation in CD, the nonwoven fabric fromonly Manila hemp, particularly in the bottom part, elongated well downward and shrank horizontally.
The whole test piece happened to rotate clockwise. However, the bottom left part formed a fold, andthe bottom right quarter was displaced in the down and left direction. The characteristic behavior in
the case of tensile deformation in CD was even elongation over the span, judging from the result thatthe vertical component of the displacement vectors, that is, downward displacement increased
gradually as one goes downward.

6

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

As shown by arrows in Fig. 9, during tensile deformation in MD for the nonwoven fabriccomposed of 75 % rayon and 25 % Manila hemp, contraction from the left and right ends toward thecenter was greater than those composed of only Manila hemp and the fabric did not make a dup fold.
The fabric formed wavy folds at short intervals because of a lower stiffness in CD than that of theManila hemp nonwoven. The arrow length distribution might lead to a misunderstanding that
displacement is the greatest in the center, but the vertical direction component of every displacement
vector has almost equal intensities. This displacement distribution diagram has fewer arrows thanothers because of many failed searches for the post-displacement position.
As shown by arrows in Fig. 10, during tensile deformation in CD, the nonwoven fabriccomposed of 25 % Manila hemp and 75 % rayon, the vertical component of the vector became larger
as one goes downward. Concurrent horizontal contraction was less than that for other nonwoven
fabrics of the different fiber mixture ratios. This finding implies that elongation occurs without aconcurrent contraction in the perpendicular direction due to a low Poisson ratio. This characteristic
property is observed with sheets with weak interfiber bonding.
Nonwoven fabrics from the intermediate mixture ratio, that is, 75 % Manila hemp and 25 %rayon, showed an intermediate tendency between the two nonwoven fabrics described so far. Notethat all the data shown here is for nonwoven fabrics only and deformation of care sheets laminatedwith a plastic film may occur differently in practical uses.
Figure 11 shows water absorption rates of non-laminated nonwoven fabrics. The rate of thefabrics including rayon fibers was higher than that of only Manila hemp fibers. Rayon fibers tend toabsorb water by swelling of themselves and the swelling velocity is relatively high. This may be areason of the higher water absorption rate, but it can be another possible reason that addition ofrayon fibers reduced interfiber bonding and increased the porosity of the fabric. Figure 12 shows
polyurethane laminate reduced the water absorption rate of the nonwoven fabrics, but did not alter its
order of the fiber mixture ratio. If the swelling velocity of rayon fibers affected the rate, the fabricwith a porosity reduced by the laminate would have absorbed water faster than the non-laminatedfabric. Consequently, a major factor affecting the water absorption rate is considered to be porosityof nonwoven fabrics.

CONCLUSION
The best fiber mixture ratio in the trial care sheets was concluded to be 75 % Manila hemp
and 25 % rayon fibers. Addition of rayon fibers at about this ratio gives the most adequate properties
like soft touch and sensory smoothness to nonwoven fabrics as well as non-slipperiness against a
65/35 polyester/cotton bed sheeting. In terms of non-slipperiness, low-density polyethylene wasbetter than polyurethane as a laminate material. The coefficient of friction of the low-density
polyethylene side is higher than the nonwoven side against a bed linen cloth at any fiber mixture

7

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

ratio. Addition of rayon fibers also gives relatively high water absorbency and moderate elongation
under tensile force meaning shock-resistance, in spite of rather reduced tensile strength, tononwoven fabrics.
In this work, a new method to analyze tensile deformation distribution of nonwoven fabrics
using pattern-matching technique was demonstrated. From distribution of vectors indicating distanceand direction of displacement determined by this method, it was found that addition of rayon fibers,
during tensile deformation in MD, allows even elongation in MD, but increases contraction in CD.
For practical bedside use, the performance of the trial care sheets as they become wet needs
to be evaluated. But, this will be a future area of our work.

ACKNOWRIGEMENT
This research was supported by the scientific research fund (No.12559001, B2, 2000) from
Ministry of Education and Science, Japan. The authors thank Mr. Tomohito Nakayama, MS student(currently on SoftBrain Co. Ltd. Japan) for programming the image correlation software.

LITERATURE CITED
1.

Berkalp, O. B., Pourdeyhimi, B. and Seyam, A., "Texture evolution in hydroentangled
nonwovens", International Nonwovens Journal, Spring, 28-35, 2003

2.

Kim, H. S. and Pourdeyhimi, B., "The role of structure on mechanical properties of nonwoven
fabrics", International Nonwovens Journal, Summer, 32-37, 2001

3.

Kuga, S., Kataoka, H., Enomae, T., Onabe, F., Yagi, N. and Fukami, O., "Development andapplication of dynamic scanning absorptometer – speeding-up and improvement of the Bristow
measurement –", Japan TAPPI J., Vol. 48, No.5, 730-734, 1994.

4.

Nakayama, T., Enomae, T. and Onabe, F., “Techniques for analyzing paper properties byapplying image processing to light transmission image” (in Japanese), Japan TAPPI J., Vol. 56,
No.11, 1646-1652, 2002

5.

Parker, A., Kenyon, R. V. and Troxel, D. E., “Comparison of interpolating methods forimage resampling” IEEE Trans., Vol. MI-21, No.3, 31-39, 1983

6.

Thorr, F., Adolphe, D. and Drean, J. Y., "Study of nonwoven mass reorganization under tensilestress thanks to a new optical sensor and image analysis", Sensors and Actuators, Vol. A62,
565-570, 1997.

8

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

Table 1 Properties of care sheets and commercial water protection sheet
A. Manila hemp 25％／Rayon 75％ (mixed fibers)
Pulp

C. Manila hemp 100％

Nonwoven fabricA.

52

Basis weight（g/m2） B.

66

C.

59

Film and adhesive
Laminate

B. Manila hemp 75％／Rayon 25％ (mixed fibers)a. Polyurethane, urethane resin (15 g/m2)
b. Polyethylene of low density, thermal bondFilm thickness

30 µm

Laminate side

Side that was not contacted with Yankee dryer rollduring drying※Commercial water protection sheet: wood pulp tissue with a polyethylene laminate

9Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

Arbitrary X-ray counts

90°(MD)
67.5°
45°
22.5°
0°(CD)

30

32

34
36
38
Diffraction angle, 2θ (degree)

Fig.1 X-ray diffraction patterns of nonwoven fabric mounted at different angles.
The web was prepared from Manila hemp fibers as a handsheet.

1040

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

45
Nonwoven fabric
40

Copy paper

35

MD (%)

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

CD (%)

Fig.2 Comparison in degree of fiber orientation between nonwoven fabric and copy
paper.

11

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

0.02

0.18

0.14

0.015

0.12
0.1
0.01
0.08
0.06
0.005

0.04
MIU in MD
MMD in MD

0.02

MIU in CD
MMD in CD

0

0
0

25

50
75
100
Manila hemp ratio (%)

Fig.3 Kinetic coefficient of friction and its mean deviation between nonwoven
fabric and stainless wire-wound contact object of fingerprint type.

12

MMD, Mean Deviation of MUE

MUE, Coefficient of friction

0.16

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

0.7

Kinetic coefficient of friction, MIU

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2
Polyethylene
Nowoven fabricPolyethylene, commercial product
Polyurethane

0.1

0.0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Manila hemp ratio (%)

Fig. 4 Kinetic coefficient of friction between bed linen cloth and nonwoven fabric sideor film side of trial care sheets.

13

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

40
MD
CD

Load (Nm/g)

30

20

10

0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Hemp ratio, %Fig.5 Breaking strength as load per unit width and basis weight vs. Manila
hemp ratio of nonwoven fabrics with 95 % confidence intervals.

14

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

40
MD Hemp100%
MD Hemp75%+Rayon25%
MD Hemp25%+Rayon75%
30

CD Hemp100%

Load (Nm/g)

CD Hemp75%+Rayon25%
CD Hemp25%+Rayon75%
20

10

0
0

10

20
Elongation (%)

30

Fig.6 Load per unit width and basis weight vs. elongation for nonwoven fabrics
composed of different mixture ratios of Manila hemp and rayon fibers.

15

40

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

time=1

Fig. 7 Video image and superimposed distribution of in-plane deformation for fabric (hemp
100 %) during tensile deformation in Machine Direction. （Time = 5 s） Each arrow is fivetimes as long as true displacement.

16

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

time=1

Fig. 8 Video image and superimposed distribution of in-plane deformation for fabric (hemp
100 %) during tensile deformation in Cross Direction. （Time = 10 s） Each arrow is fivetimes as long as true displacement.

17

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

time=1

Fig. 9 Video image and superimposed distribution of in-plane deformation for fabric (hemp 25%+ rayon 75%) during tensile deformation in Machine Direction. （Time = 5 s） Each arrowis five times as long as true displacement.

18

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

time=1

Fig. 10 Video image and superimposed distribution of in-plane deformation for fabric (hemp
25% + rayon 75%) during tensile deformation in Cross Direction. （Time = 5 s） Eacharrow is five times as long as true displacement.

19

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

30
Hemp 25% + Rayon 75%
Hemp 100%

2

Absorbed water volume (µL/ mm )Hemp 75% + Rayon 25%

20

10

Non-laminated nonwoven
0
0

2

4

6

8

10

Elapsed time (s)Fig. 11 Water absorption rate for nonwoven fabrics made from different mixture ratios ofManila hemp and rayon fibers.

20

Textile Research Journal, Jan 2006; 76: 41 - 48

30
Hemp 25% + Rayon 75%
Hemp 100%

2

Absorbed water volume (µL/ mm )Hemp 75% + Rayon 25%

20

10

Polyurethane laminated nonwoven
0
0

5

10

15

Elapsed time (s)Fig. 12 Water absorption rate for care sheets (nonwoven fabrics with polyurethane
laminate) made from different mixture ratios of Manila hemp and rayon fibers.

21