FORMING OF SYNTHETIC FIBER FORM, FORMING UNIT THEREFOR AND SYNTHETIC FIBER FORM

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for uniform thermoforming of a synthetic fiber nonwoven sheet material without local scorching in a short time, to provide a thermoforming unit therefor, and to obtain a nonwoven sheet form excellent in elasticity, high in durability and having no adverse effect on the environment. SOLUTION: A molding cavity 5 of a compression molding mold 1 is stuffed with a synthetic fiber nonwoven fabric sheet material, and an air feed pipe 8 having an air blow hole 13 and an air recovery pipe 9 having an air suction hole 14 are inserted into the nonwoven fabric sheet material to compress it to a specified density followed by heating through the surface of the mold 1. Furthermore, a hot air is fed from an air heating circulator 10 into an air feed pipe 8 and then blown via the air blow hole 13 into the compressed nonwoven sheet material and the resultant air is recovered via the air suction hole 14 to effect setting the mutual contact parts of the fibers of the compressed nonwoven sheet material followed by cooling to obtain the objective form consisting of an elastic structural form with the fibers entangled with one another in a three-dimensional way followed by drawing both the air feed pipe 7 and air recovery pipe 8 off the final form.