STEAM JET BULKING OF MULTICOMPONENT YARNS FOR IMPROVED POST TEXTILE PROCESSING

1 . A process for steam jet bulking of multicomponent yarns, said process comprising overfeeding multicomponent yarns at a high rate into an entanglement jet using steam as the fluid media and pressure to provide partial thermal bulking and steam bulking of the multicomponent fiber.

2 . The process of claim 1 in which the entanglement jet is an air texturing jet.

3 . The process of claim 1 wherein the multicomponent yarns are overfed at a rate of greater than 30%.

4 . The process of claim 1 wherein the pressure is 10 to 60 psig.

5 . The process of claim 1 further comprising winding the resultant product onto a cardboard or plastic tube to allow for direct processing of the bulked multicomponent yarn into further textile processing equipment.

6 . The process of claim 1 further comprising introducing heated water to the multicomponent yarn prior to overfeeding the entanglement jet.

7 . The process of claim 6 wherein the water is heated to temperature above 70° C.

8 . The process of claim 1 wherein multiple feed yarns are plied at a point prior to entering the entanglement jet.

9 . A multicomponent yarn prepared from the process for steam jet bulking of multicomponent yarns of claim 1 .

10 . A package of the multicomponent yarn of claim 9 wound on cardboard paper or plastic tube.

11 . The package of claim 10 wherein the wound multicomponent yarn package creates bulk through thermal activation that has a percent bulking efficiency (% BE) greater than 15%.

12 . The package of claim 10 having a package weight greater than 1 kg.

13 . A stretch fabric comprising the multicomponent yarn of claim 9 .

14 . An article of manufacture comprising the multicomponent yarn of claim 9 .

15 . An article of manufacture comprising the stretch fabric of claim 13 .

16 . The package of claim 10 that has been dyed.

17 . A multicomponent yarn with a percent bulking efficiency (% BE) ranging from 15% to 67%.