WET LAYED BUNDLED FIBER MAT WITH BINDER FIBER

摘要

A method of producing a wet-layed non-woven mat (10) from glass fibers includes the steps of: drawing streams of molten glass into continuous filaments, applying a size to the continuous filaments, gathering the continuous filaments into strands, chopping the strands into discrete length bundles (12) while substantially maintaining the integrity of the bundles, drying the bundles, adding the bundles and a plurality of binder fibers (14) to an aqueous-based mixture, thereby forming a slurry, mixing the slurry to entangle the bundles and the binder fibers, wherein the integrity of the bundles is substantially maintained in the slurry, transferring the slurry to a forming wire, wherein water is removed from the slurry to form a web while substantially maintaining the integrity of the bundles, and heating the web to fuse intersections between the bundles and the binder fibers, thereby forming a mat while substantially maintaining the integrity of the bundles.