The investigation of the effect of polypropylene copolymer and thermoplastic polyolefin use in bulked continuous filament yarn production on carpet performance

Machine-made carpet sector has been started to constitute an important share in the textile industry. Increased demands of consumers lead manufacturers to seek innovative products. Polypropylene (PP) homopolymer is one of the most used raw materials in the sector due to its price advantage and durability, but some mechanical properties are expected to be improved. In other respects, polypropylene copolymer(coPP) and thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) polymers are widely preferred engineering materials on industrial products to improve some mechanical behaviors of PP homopolymer. In this sense, with the aim of investigating the effect of mixing PP homopolymer with coPP and/or TPO polymers on the carpet pile yarns, bulked continuous filament (BCF) yarns were produced with different types of compositions. Thermal, structural and surface characterizations and some mechanical properties of BCF yarns were investigated. In order to examine the effect of polymer mixing on the mechanical behaviors of carpets, samples were produced from BCF yarns by tufting technique and some mechanical tests were carried out. In addition, the results of the mechanical tests performed to the yarn and carpet samples were also analyzed statistically. As a result, mixing PP homopolymer with coPP and/or TPO provided improvement on the mechanical properties of BCF yarns and also usage performances of carpets.