Filament
Filament turns up in 2 fields: nonwovens, textiles. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Filament in nonwovens
A fiber of effectively unlimited length, extruded and laid down without cutting, as in spunbond webs.
Spunlaid processes extrude filaments through a spinneret, draw them with air and lay them straight onto a moving belt, so the web is built from unbroken strands. A continuous filament web is stronger at a given weight than a carded staple web because there are no fiber ends to pull out. Hygiene spunbond filaments typically sit around 1.5 to 2.5 denier.
"Filament denier is creeping up on beam two, so the coverage is getting blotchy at 10 gsm."
Filament in textiles
A continuous, unbroken strand of fiber of indefinite length.
A single, continuous strand of textile material that can run for thousands of meters without a break. Silk is the only natural filament, unspooled directly from a cocoon, while synthetic materials like nylon and polyester are extruded as continuous filaments. Because they lack the short ends of staple fibers, yarns made from these strands are exceptionally smooth, strong, and lustrous.
"The extruder is jamming, causing breaks in the nylon filament before it hits the spool."