Disposable diaper

• US 20050038401A1
• Filed: 08/13/2004
• Published: 02/17/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Unicharm Corporation
• Original Assignee: Unicharm Corporation
• Inventors: Otsubo, Toshifumi, Suzuki, Sachiyo
• Granted Patent: US 7,722,587 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 604/385.10
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 13/495 with faecal cavity
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2013/4956 with vertical spacer or separator keeping other components out of contact

Abstract

A disposable diaper has a chassis and a body fluid absorbent structure. The body fluid absorbent structure comprises a panel of body fluid absorbent material and a liquid-pervious sheet covering a surface of the panel facing the wearer'"'"'s skin. The diaper is provided with a plurality of crossover members extending across the body fluid absorbent structure and facing the liquid-pervious sheet. The crossover member has its transversely opposite end portions bonded to the diaper in the vicinity of the side edge portions of the body fluid absorbent structure and its intermediate portion defined between the side end portions not bonded to the liquid-pervious sheet.

Claims

1. A disposable diaper comprising:

a chassis;

a body fluid absorbent structure;

said chassis having a back-and-forth direction, a width direction orthogonal to the back-and-forth direction, a front waist region, a rear waist region and a crotch region extending between the front and rear waist regions;

said absorbent structure comprising a body fluid absorbent panel lying on a side of said inner surface so as to extend on at least the crotch region of said front and rear waist regions and said crotch region and a liquid-pervious sheet covering a surface of said absorbent panel facing a wearer'"'"'s skin;

said absorbent structure being dimensioned in said crotch region to be narrower than said crotch region and having a pair of side edge portions extending in parallel to each other in said back-and-forth direction and, on the side facing said wearer'"'"'s skin, said liquid-pervious sheet covering said absorbent panel being opposed to at least one crossover member extending across said absorbent structure above said absorbent structure in said width direction and having a width in a range of 5 to 250 mm as measured in said back-and-forth direction; and

said transversely opposite end portions of said crossover member being bonded to said diaper in a vicinity of said transversely opposite side edge portions and said intermediate portion defined between said transversely opposite end portions being not bonded to the diaper whereby said intermediate portion being deformable so as to become convex from said outer surface to said inner surface as said chassis and said body fluid absorbent structure are deformed in said crotch region so as to become convex from said inner surface toward said outer surface and to reduce respective widths of these chassis and structure.

2. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 1, wherein said diaper has a plurality of said crossover members, a pair of said crossover members being adjacent to each other in said back-and-forth direction located in a vicinity of the wearer'"'"'s anus are spaced apart from each other by a dimension in a range of 10 to 150 mm in said back-and-forth direction so that feces discharged by the wearer pass through a clearance defined between these adjacent crossover members.

3. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 1, wherein said crossover member is formed from a belt-like sheet made of material selected from the group consisting of a nonwoven fabric containing thermoplastic synthetic fibers, a woven fabric containing thermoplastic synthetic fibers and a thermoplastic synthetic resin film.

4. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 3, wherein said belt-like sheet is formed with a plurality of slits extending in said width direction of said diaper between transversely opposite end portions bonded to said diaper and each pair of said slits being adjacent to each other in said back-and-forth direction are spaced apart from each other by a dimension in a range of 2 to 80 mm.

5. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 1, wherein said crossover member has a bending resistance in a range of 10 to 150 in said width direction of said diaper as measured using a sample having a width of 25 mm and a length of 150 mm and attached to said diaper in a state curved so as to become convex from said outer surface toward said inner surface.

6. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 1, wherein said crossover member is attached to said diaper in a state curved so as to describe a C-shape.

7. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 1, wherein said crossover member is attached to said diaper in a state curved so as to describe an Ω

-shape.

8. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 1, wherein said crossover member contains thermoplastic synthetic resin and is previously thermoformed so as to become convex from said outer surface toward said inner surface.

9. The disposable diaper as set forth by claim 1, wherein said diaper is provided with a pair of leak-barrier cuffs extending in said back-and-forth direction along said transversely opposite side edges of said body fluid absorbent panel and adapted to be elastically stretchable and contractible in said back-and-forth direction and said crossover member is provided inside the pair of said leak-barrier cuffs.