Method and equipment for continuously spinning and stretching synthetic filaments

Claim 1

In a melt spinning method for continuously spinning, stretching and winding-up synthetic filaments comprising extruding filaments from a spinneret under a reduced tension of about 0.5 glden; cooling and conditioning said filaments by passing said filaments through quenching and conditioning environments; mechanically stretching said filaments in a stretching zone by passing said filaments over an upstream godet rotating at a first speed and then passing said filaments over a downstream godet rotating at a second speed higher than said first speed; and windingingup the thus stretched filaments; the improvement comprising; treating said filaments by an intermediate processing operation immediately prior to said step of mechanically stretching, said intermediate operation comprising bending said filaments in a first bending direction around a first circular arc, and then bending said filaments in a second opposite bending direction around a second circular arc, the path of said filaments during said bending steps having two circular arcs of angular amplitude between 20* and 130*, thereby increasing the tension by about 0.1-0.2 glden of and imparting a slight incremental stretch to said filaments between said second circular arc and said upstream godet.