It is important to know material consumption for making masks for costing and sourcing of nonwoven fabrics. Here, I have covered the length and
weight of nonwoven fabrics needed for making surgical facemask. Normally, 1 gram of melt-blown and spun-bond fabric required
per layer for 25 gsm fabrics (This is an approximate data). For a 3 layer mask, you need 3 grams of fabrics.
To get
accurate consumption of melt-blown and spun-bond fabrics for a single mask, you need
to measure it using mask sample, mask size, and fabric GSM.
3-ply surgical face masks normally come in two sizes - Kids
size and Standard/Adult sizes. The ready face mask sizes are
- Standard size: 175
mm x 95 mm and
- Kids size: 145 mm X 95 mm
Calculate Fabric Consumption in mm
You know the mask is made of 3 layers, two
spun-bond outer layers, and one melt-blown in the middle. Therefore, measure the
mask area for all three plies separately.
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| Image-1: 3 Ply face mask sample |
The ready mask is made with 3 pleats and
pleats width is 13-14 mm (in my sample). It may vary slightly as per machine
set-up. To find the tape with, I removed all three pleats and got the fabric area for a mask as
follows. You see all 3 layers are pleated for making the face mask.
 |
| Image-2: Face mask after opening pleats |
We got these measurements from the sample face masks.
- Tape/roll width: 172 mm (+3 mm for inside layer of the mask, extra width is kept for the inner layer for covering the edges and clean finish on the top and bottom edges of the mask. You can see it in the first image).
- Length per mask: 175 mm
- Pleats width: 13-14 mm
Fabric consumption in lengthwise 175 mm per
layer. Fabric layers are feed using 3 separate rolls. Width of non-woven fabrics roll between 172 - 175
mm
Related post: Different types of fabric used in making face masks
Fabric consumption per mask in grams
Normally mask fabrics are traded in kgs. If
you need fabric consumption for masks in Kg you can convert it convert the area
into Kgs per masks. For this conversion, you need fabric weight (fabric GSM).
Let us say Melt-blown and Spunbond fabric GSM: 30 (In your sample, fabric GSM may
be different).
Considering all these measurement, total
areas needed per mask
= (172 x 175 +172 x 175+175x175) sq.mm.
= (30100+30100+30625) = 90825 Sq. mm combining
3 layers
= 0.090825 sq. meters
Consumption in grams = (Area of Fabric x
GSM) = (0.090825x30) Grams= 2.275 grams.
Including wastes fabric needed 3 grams for 3 layers. 2 grams spun-bond and 1 gram melt-blown.