US Patent 7883772 High strength, durable fabrics produced by fibrillating multilobal fibers

A fabric including microdenier fibers is provided, the microdenier fibers prepared by fibrillating a multicomponent, multilobal fiber including a contiguous core fiber component enwrapped by a multilobal sheath fiber component such that the sheath fiber component forms the entire outer surface of the multicomponent fiber, wherein the core fiber component and the multilobal sheath fiber component are sized such that the multicomponent, multilobal fiber can be fibrillated to expose the core fiber component and split the fiber into multiple microdenier fibers.