Building a product design support system for nonwoven geosynthetics

摘要

This paper presents a new way of supporting the product design of nonwovens, and particularly nonwoven geosynthetics. In a more generalized research project, some predictive tools are developed, that are able to predict the functional properties of nonwovens according to the main structure parameters. Using these tools, the geosynthetic manufacturers could better check the relevance of the structure parameters of nonwovens and control their influence on the functional properties. It also allows the manufacturers to reduce cost and time for designing new products and thus to become more reactive and competitive. Such a procedure has the advantage not to be influenced by the features of the production process, often related to the manufacturer. In this paper, after introducing the general procedure of supporting the product design of nonwovens, the structure/properties relationships of a geosynthetics dedicated to filtration is presented as an application example. Some suitable techniques to characterize the structural parameters are then suggested. Also proposed are some techniques to identify the relevant structural parameters.