**5. Conclusion**

Injection molding enables the large scale production of polymeric components with accuracy. This technology has been progressively used for the production of microcomponents in quantity and quality at low cost, which supports the development of microelectro-mechanical systems. Nevertheless, the dimensional reduction of the components requires a higher control of the dimensional accuracy of these devices. It is also known that in the molding blocks of this type of objects, the wear is amplified due to the fact that the surface roughness is dimensionally very close to the dimensions being controlled. Reinforcing materials such as glass or metallic fibers, or carbon nanotubes in the polymeric matrix enhances the wear capability of the material being injected, compromising the service life time of the tools. Reinforced thermoplastics, the so called nano-composites, where developed in order to test the tools and the process, using carbon nanotubes as enhancers.

A gateway to reduce the deterioration of the molding impressions, increase their durability and reduce the need of corrective intervention on the tool may be by the use of appropriate surface engineering processes. The use of nanocrystalline diamond or other allotropic carbon coatings is considered a potential surface engineering coating for this type of application, since it detains high hardness and high thermal conductivity, being both properties very interesting to apply to the thermoplastic injection molding process. The

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**12** 

Deniz Duran *Ege University* 

*Turkey* 

**Investigation of the Physical Characteristics of** 

Nonwovens are a unique class of textile materials, formed by bonding the fibers by various techniques. The demand through the nonwovens is increasing on the world day by day and nonwovens are getting integrated to more application areas rapidly. Today, nonwovens have achieved an excellent position among the products of daily use like hygiene, medicine,

Meltblown nonwovens are a relatively new class of thermoplastic based nonwoven materials which integrate to new application areas to replace conventional textile materials. Due to their unique micro structure, low porosity, absorbency, light weight and high surface area, microfiber meltblown nonwovens are promising materials of the future. Meltblowing is a one step process which enables to produce microfiber nonwovens directly from thermoplastic polymers with the aid of high velocity air to attenuate the melt filaments. In this process high velocity air blows a molten thermoplastic resin from an extruder die tip onto a conveyor or take up screen to form a fine fiberous and selfbonding web. (Bang One Lee et al., 2010) It has become an important industrial technique in nonwovens because of its ability to produce fabrics of microfiber structure suitable for filtration media, thermal insulators, battery seperators, oil absorbents, wipes, apparel, medical applications and many lamination applications. (Zhang et al., 2002 ,

Meltblowing is a unique process since it is used almost exclusively to produce microfibers rather than fibers the size of conventional textile fibers. Meltblown microfibers generally have diameters in the range of 2 to 4 µm, although they may be as small as 0.1 µm and as large as 10 to 15 µm. Differences between meltblown nonwoven fabrics and other nonwoven fabrics, such as degree of softness, cover or opacity, and porosity can generally be traced to

Meltblowing technology is used for producing light fiber webs directly from polymers. This process process allows the production of ultrafine filament nonwovens under very economical conditions. In the basic melt blowing process, a thermoplastic fibre forming polymer is melted in an extruder, pumped through die holes and then the melt enters high-

**1. Introduction** 

household and more. (Ebeling et al., 2006)

Duran&Perincek, 2010; Dutton, 2008)

differences in filament size. (Bang One Lee et al., 2010)

**Polypropylene Meltblown Nonwovens Under** 

**Varying Production Parameters** 

