Transport Processes for Diapers

Development of a Marketable Washable Diaper

One-way sanitary products for the absorption of body fluids (diapers, incontinence products) have to satisfy the following requirements:

• quick absorption,
• storage of large amounts of liquid,
• little re-wetting under pressure.

Environmental aspects for textile as well as disposable sanitary products are of increasing importance. If one can combine the above-mentioned comfort properties of one-way products with maximum reusability, an increasing acceptance on the market could be expected.

In a research project conducted in conjunction with small and medium-sized companies in Rhineland-Palatinate (Kahnes), mathematical tools and software were developed to model material properties for a large class of materials and to optimize the design of washable diapers by the numerical simulation of the diffusion processes. It was obvious that only multi-layer constructions can satisfy the above-mentioned requirements. But what kind of material should be used? Thickness, density, type of fibre and layer structure were open questions. An optimal de-sign was calculated through optimization methods, using a parallel computer. Thanks to this -mathematical description, it was possible to pro-pose new materials and to simulate their effectiveness.