Elastic Dual-Layer Topsheet for Absorbent Articles
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Solution Overview
Problem
Feminine and adult hygiene absorbent personal care articles often experience discomfort due to initial and continuing wetness sensations, as the topsheet layer retains moisture and can reabsorb fluids, leading to rewet, and existing solutions have not adequately addressed breathability and air circulation while maintaining contact with the user's skin.
Innovation Solution
The design features a liquid permeable first topsheet layer that is extensible and elastic, attached to a second topsheet layer at the ends, creating a spatial gap and allowing for air circulation, with ventilation openings along the sides and ends to reduce rewet sensations and maintain contact with the user's skin.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If the topsheet layer is made absorbent using hydrophilic construction materials, then absorbency is improved, but the topsheet layer retains moisture and creates uncomfortable wetness sensation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the topsheet layer into multiple functional zones: hydrophilic regions for fluid acquisition and hydrophobic regions for moisture wicking away from the skin. This segmentation allows the topsheet to simultaneously absorb fluids while maintaining a dry skin interface through the hydrophobic channels that transport moisture laterally.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the topsheet layer are assigned different material properties - hydrophilic areas directly contact the skin to provide comfort and wick moisture, while hydrophobic areas handle bulk fluid absorption. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction by ensuring that the skin-contacting zones remain relatively dry while other zones manage absorbency.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the topsheet layer is made hydrophobic to reduce wetness sensation, then wetness feeling is reduced, but breathability and air circulation are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The topsheet layer incorporates hydrophobic channels or regions that are strategically positioned to wick moisture away from the skin while maintaining open porous structures that allow air circulation. These hydrophobic pathways are designed to transport liquid moisture laterally without blocking vapor transmission, thus reducing wetness sensation while preserving breathability.
Solution Approach 2:
The topsheet layer is constructed as a composite structure combining hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials in specific configurations. The hydrophobic components provide moisture management and wetness reduction, while the overall porous composite structure maintains breathability and air flow through the layer.
3Quantity of substance
If the topsheet layer closely associates with subjacent absorbent structures, then fluid capture is improved, but the topsheet layer may move out of contact with the user's skin during daily activities
Solution Approach 1:
The topsheet layer is designed with elastic or stretchable properties that allow it to dynamically adapt to body movements and maintain skin contact. The layer can stretch and conform during daily activities while preserving its close association with the absorbent core, ensuring continuous fluid capture capability and consistent skin contact without displacement.
4Ease of operation
If the topsheet layer has relatively larger openings for breathability, then air circulation is improved, but the plastic-like feel and discomfort increase
Solution Approach 1:
The topsheet layer features hydrophobic channels with larger openings strategically positioned to facilitate air circulation and breathability, while the skin-contacting surfaces maintain smaller, more uniform pore structures that provide a soft, comfortable feel. This local differentiation allows large openings for ventilation without creating a plastic-like sensation against the skin.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design reduces rewet sensations and enhances user comfort by maintaining a dry sensation and breathability, ensuring the topsheet layer remains in contact with the skin despite movement, while allowing for effective fluid absorption and distribution.
Implementation Method 1
The first topsheet layer may be made from a hydrophilic construction material, such as a natural fiber or a surfactant-treated polymeric material, and may demonstrate an affinity for absorbed fluid
Implementation Method 2
hydrophobic topsheet layers have been developed from polymeric fibrous nonwoven layers or apertured film layers, such that the article demonstrates an extended feeling of dryness at the article skin-contacting surface
Data Source
AI summary
An absorbent article includes two planar liquid permeable topsheet layers with a first topsheet layer suspended from the longitudinal ends of the second topsheet layer. The first topsheet layer is of shorter length than the second topsheet layer such that the relaxed absorbent article includes a curvature along its length. The first topsheet layer defines a central opening and two end openings which allow for air circulation through the article and also for the second topsheet layer to be seen through the openings in the first topsheet layer. While the first topsheet layer is at least extensible, it is desirably elastic.