Process for the production of disposable diaper panties

Claim 1

A process for continuously manufacturing disposable diapers having an absorbent pad in between a fluid-impermeable outer cover and a fluid-permeable inner lining, said diapers being provided with lateral cutouts to permit the passage of the legs and with rectilinear elastic means adhesively secured to the fluid-impermeable outer cover over at least a part of their length and disposed on each side of the absorbent pad, the process comprising the steps of: passing a continuous fluid-impermeable outer cover sheet, as a separate element, on to a rotating drum having a smooth outer surface, providing a continuous multistrand elastic tape which has been obtained by extruding at high temperature a multiplicity of individual parallel elastic strands and subsequently joining the parallel strands together in a single plane by contact before cooling, generating a predetermined tension by stretching said continuous multistrand elastic tape, continuously dividing the multistrand elastic tape into two groups and dividing each group into a plurality of separated continuous individual parallel elastic strands, by passing said continuous multistrand elastic tape on each side of a pluraltiy of successive separation rods mounted orthogonally in the path of said continuous elastic strands, passing each separated continuous elastic strand into a separate substantially horizontal groove which is open toward the upper side thereof, one groove per strand, intermittently feeding each said groove with a high temperature liquid adhesive material in such a way that each continuous elastic strand is separately coated with said adhesive over its entire periphery, causing the separated continuous elastic stands, while maintaining them under stretching tension and after they have been adhesively coated, to contact the surface of said continuous fluid-permeable outer cover sheet, free from additional pressure, while said cover sheet is passing around said rotating drum, said two groups being spaced apart from each other and on opposite sides of said sheet, thereby attaching each said stretched strand to said cover sheet, superimposing, on the strands and cover sheet, spaced-apart absorbent pads and a continuous fluid-permeable inner lining sheet, and cutting the continuous superposition transversely between absorbent pads to form individual diapers.