Patent ID: 8524040

Claim:
A method of making a belt-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet, the method comprising: (a) compactively dewatering a papermaking furnish to form a nascent web having an apparently random distribution of papermaking fiber orientation; (b) applying the nascent web having the apparently random distribution of fiber orientation to a translating transfer surface that is moving at a transfer surface speed; (c) belt-creping the web from the transfer surface at a consistency of from about 30% to about 60% utilizing a patterned creping belt, the belt-creping step occurring under pressure in a belt creping nip defined between the transfer surface and the creping belt, wherein the belt is traveling at a belt speed that is slower than the transfer surface speed, the web being creped from the transfer surface and redistributed on the creping belt to form a web with a reticulum having a plurality of interconnected regions of different local basis weights including at least (i) a plurality of fiber-enriched pileated regions of a local basis weight that is higher than an average basis weight of the web, the fiber-enriched pileated regions generally extending in the cross machine direction (CD) of the web, and interconnected by way of (ii) a plurality of elongated densified regions of compressed papermaking fibers, the elongated densified regions having a local basis weight that is lower than the local basis weight of the fiber-enriched pileated regions, and being generally oriented along the machine direction (MD) of the web; and (d) drying the web to produce a belt-creped absorbent cellulosic sheet.