NC State & The Nonwovens Institute

Print this article | Send to Colleague

Our industry has evolved for the past 1900 years and continues to do so to this day. TAPPI exists to serve our members and as our members develop, so does TAPPI. Within TAPPI we have many Divisions, Local Sections, Student Chapters and International Chapters. One of these dynamic divisions is NET (for Nonwovens Engineers and Technologists and formerly known as the Nonwovens Division).

One of the most active contributors to NET is Dr. Behnam Pourdeyhimi of North Carolina State University (NC State). In a recent visit to the university, I met with Dr. Pourdeyhimi and Genevieve Garland, Director of Marketing & Business Development for The Nonwovens Institute (NWI) at NC State. NWI was launched in 2007 as the world's first accredited academic program for the interdisciplinary study of engineered fabrics.

Based at the NC State's Centennial Campus in Raleigh, NWI is an innovative global partnership between industry, government and academia. NWI traces its history to 1991, when the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC) was established as a State-Industry-University Cooperative Research Center with matching grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the State of North Carolina, and several industry partners. In 1998, upon conclusion of NSF grant funding, NCRC continued to enhance its technology and research capabilities while growing membership to become North America's largest State-Industry-University Cooperative Research Center. NCRC now serves as NWI's core research and discovery arm.

Operating on an Open Innovation platform, NWI engages experts from industry and higher education in building next-generation nonwoven applications while providing training and guidance to the field's future leaders. In order to prepare these future leaders, NC State offers an interdisciplinary graduate certificate in Nonwovens Science and Engineering.

In addition, NWI supports more than 30 Ph.D. students whose research ranges from materials to surface engineering to modeling and simulation. These students are drawn from Fiber & Polymer Science, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Textile Engineering, and other units. NWI also supports students at other institutions and has created a global network of professionals engaged in the field of nonwovens.

For more information on NWI go to www.thenonwovensinstitute.com or nonwovens@ncsu.edu. For more information on TAPPI go to www.tappi.org.

There are two types of people in our industry, TAPPI members and those who should be.

Until next time -- Larry