Hidenori Sato, Kanonji, Japan.
Assigned to Unicharm Corporation, Ehime, Japan.

Filed: 8/15/12
Issued: 4/19/16

An apparatus for implementation of a method of making a bodily fluid absorbent pad, said pad having a longitudinal direction, a transverse direction and a thickness direction being orthogonal one to another, said pad elongated in said longitudinal direction and further having: a skin-contact surface and a skin-noncontact surface opposite to said skin-contact surface as viewed in said thickness direction, side edges extending in said longitudinal direction, first and second end regions opposite to each other in said longitudinal direction, and an intermediate region extending between said first and second end regions, a dimension of said pad in the transverse direction in the first and second end regions being larger than that in the intermediate region, wherein said pad on said skin-contact surface includes compressed lines extending in said longitudinal direction inboard of the respective side edges, said method comprising: feeding a bodily fluid absorbent web in a machine direction; and compressing said bodily fluid absorbent web to form said compressed lines including first and second compressed segments in said first and second end regions, respectively, and third compressed segments in said intermediate region, said apparatus comprising: a pair of compression rolls adapted to compress said bodily fluid absorbent web and including compressing units projecting from a peripheral surface of at least one of the compression rolls, wherein said compressing units are arranged in at least first and second rows adjacent to each other in a cross direction and extending in the machine direction, the first row of the compressing units is offset from the second row of said compressing units in the machine direction, first and second regions in said first row are adapted to form said first and second compressed segments and opposed to each other in the machine direction, and a third region in the second row of said compressing units is adapted to form said third compressed segments, and is lateral to the first and second regions in said first row in the cross direction.