Patent ID: 7308743

Claim:
Method for colorless plastic patterning and strengthening of a nonwoven fabric web of fibers that is not woven or knitted, comprising: providing a perforated drum, a coarse-meshed screen fabric externally surrounding the perforated drum, a fine meshed spun lace belt braced on the perforated drum via the coarse-meshed screen fabric that is interposed between the perforated drum and the fine meshed spun lace belt, and a pattern-imparting substrate, which is only partly liquid-permeable and is open with a pattern, externally surrounding the fine meshed spun lace belt; providing a nonwoven fabric web over the pattern-imparting substrate; impinging high-energy water jets against an outer surface of the nonwoven fabric web, whereby fibers of the fabric web lying in a first plane provided with an intended pattern are partly displaced by impinging liquid in the high-energy water jets into a second plane and held up in the second plane against further displacement by the fine meshed spun lace belt; and draining the impinging liquid, whereby the fibers of the fabric web in the first and second planes are intertwined with one another by the action of the high-energy water jets so that the nonwoven fabric web is strengthened over its entire area and with a pattern.