Disclosed is the preparation of improved high strength nylon staple fibers having a denier per filament of 1.0 to 3.0, a tenacity T at break of at least about 6.0, and a load-bearing capacity, T.sub.7, of greater than 3.2. Such nylon staple fibers are produced by preparing tows of relatively uniformly spun and quenched nylon filaments, drawing and annealing such tows via a two-stage drawing and annealing operation using relatively high draw ratios and then cutting or otherwise converting the drawn and annealed tows into the desired high strength nylon staple fibers.

The nylon staple fibers so prepared can be blended with other fibers such as cotton staple fibers to produce nylon/cotton (NYCO) yarns which are also of desirably high strength.

A woven sleeve, sleeve assembly and methods of construction thereof are provided. The sleeve has a flexible, abrasion resistant, circumferentially closed and continuous elongate wall extending lengthwise along a central axis between opposite ends. The wall is woven with warp yarns extending generally parallel to the central axis and at least one heat-shrinkable weft yarn extending generally transversely to the warp yarns. The warp yarns provide the sleeve with coverage, abrasion resistance and flexibility and the weft yarn provides the ability to shrink the wall about an elongate member being protected within a cavity of the sleeve, as well as providing enhanced crush strength and abrasion resistance. At least one of the warp yarns and/or weft yarn includes at least one low melt, heat-fusible yarn served therewith to enhance resistance to end-fray during a cutting operation.

This invention relates to a Denim protective fabric, with fire-retardant properties, and the process of dyeing the warp with indigo blue dye on a mixture of cellulosic and synthetic fibers, in order to obtain a permanently fire-retardant fabric, resistant to flame, heat, breaking, tearing, cutting and abrasion by impact. The resulting fabric is also antistatic and can be considered as a protective fabric like fire-retardant Denim and also a multi-risk fabric. The indigo blue dye is applied on a mixture of cellulosic and synthetic fibers with permanently fire-retardant properties such as fire-retardant viscose, fire-retardant modal, modacrylic, polyacrylate, polyamide, polyester, antistatic carbon, para-aramid, meta-aramid, polyamide-imide, polyethylene, PBI, with the aim of obtaining an authentic Denim jeans fabric, with the characteristics of the tincture based on indigo blue dye that loses its color on rubbing, with use and washing.

A protective fabric is provided. The protective fabric includes a sheet-like body that is flexible, and a plurality of overlaid portions that is in the sheet-like body and discrete. Each of the plurality of overlaid portions includes tungsten.

A footwear assembly having an upper configured to receive a foot and a sole assembly integrally connected to the upper. The sole assembly includes an outsole and a midsole coupled between the upper and the outsole. The sole assembly also includes a footwear insert coupled to the midsole having anisotropic and anti-puncture properties so as to provide protection, support, and stability to the foot of a wearer of the footwear assembly while still allowing for flexibility. The footwear insert is formed from a soft, dorsal layer having woven fabric, a hard, plantar layer formed from a fiber reinforced composite material bonded to the dorsal layer, and an interfacing polymer layer interposed between the dorsal and plantar layers and used to bond the two layers together. The layered arrangement has a high resistance to bending in a first direction and a low resistance to bending in an opposing second direction.

A composite yarn comprising one or more ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers wrapped around one or more polyurethane-polyurea copolymer fibers.

Provided is an abrasion-resistant polyester fiber, which has, in particular, a strength within a specific range, an elongation within a specific range and a Young's modulus falling within a specific range in a specific elongation range on a stress-strain curve, to improve the abrasion resistance of a woven/knitted product for clothing using, in particular, a fine size polyester fiber. The polyester fiber is an abrasion-resistant polyester fiber comprising ethylene terephthalate as a main repeating unit, characterized by satisfying the following requirements: (1) the fineness being from 8 dtex to 200 dtex inclusive; (2) the single yarn fineness being from 1.0 dtex to 4.0 dtex inclusive; (3) the breaking strength being 3.5 cN/dtex or greater; (4) the breaking elongation being from 20% to 50% inclusive; and (5) the minimum differential Young's modulus being 20 cN/dtex or less in an elongation range of from 2% to 5% inclusive on a stress-strain curve of the fiber.

A textile sleeve for routing and protecting an elongate member and method of construction thereof are provided. The sleeve has a wall with opposite edges extending lengthwise between opposite ends. The edges are configured to be wrapped about a central longitudinal axis to bound the elongate member within an enclosed cavity. The wall is formed of interlaced heat-resistant yarn with at least one hook-type fastener member along one of the edges and at least one loop-type fastener member along the other of the edges. The hook-type fastener member and the loop-type fastener member are configured to attach with one another to maintain the opposite edges in releasably fixed, overlapping relation with one another.

A wrappable textile sleeve and method of construction thereof is provided. The wrappable textile sleeve includes an elongate wall extending along a longitudinal axis between opposite ends with lengthwise extending edges extending parallel or substantially parallel with the longitudinal axis between the opposite ends. The wall is woven from lengthwise extending warp yarns and circumferentially extending weft yarns. The weft yarns form a plurality of discrete annular bands, with adjacent bands having weft yarns of different diameters to provide the wall with discrete enhanced hoop strength regions and with discrete enhanced flexibility regions, where the enhanced hoop strength and enhanced flexibility regions alternate in adjacent relation with one another.

Lightweight, flexible protective fabrics for protecting a person, animal or other object from hot burning materials, hot high heat capacity and/or hot corrosive materials, such as hot molten metal, hot oily liquids (e.g., heating oil), hot gels, hot solids, hot sparks, and hot acids. The lightweight protective fabrics can be used to protect a person, animal or other object from hot molten metals, such as liquid metal zinc heated to a temperature of about 950 F. (510 C.) or greater, hot molten aluminum heated to a temperature of about 1150 F. (620 C.) or greater, burning phosphorus at temperature of about 1550 F. (843 C.) or greater, hot solid iron having a temperature of about 500 F. (260 C.) or greater, hot heating oil having a temperature of about 500 F. (260 C.) or greater, and hot hydrochloric acid having a temperature of about 300 F. (150 C.) or greater.