Modeling polypropylene polymer air drawing in the spunbonding nonwoven process

Purpose – The air drawing model plays an important in spunbonding. The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of the density and the specific heat capacity of polymer melt at constant pressure changing with polymer temperature on the fiber diameter. Design/methodology/approach – The air drawing model of the polypropylene polymer in a spunbonding process is presented and solved by introducing the numerical computation results of the air flow field of aerodynamic device. Findings – The model prediction of the filament fiber diameter coincides well with the experimental data. The effects of the processing parameters on the filament fiber diameter are discussed. A lower polymer throughput rate, higher polymer melt temperature, higher primary air temperature, higher venturi gap, higher air suction speed, and higher quench pressure can all produce finer filament fiber. Originality/value – The experimental results show that the agreement between the results and experimental data are very better, which verifies the reliability of these models. The results show great prospects for this research in the field of computer assisted design of spunbonding technology.