Need For Automobile Textile

1. Reducing vehicle weight for cutting down CO₂ emission and achieving better fuel-efficiency, the trend is towards lightweight vehicles replacing metal by fibre composites in most of the applications.
2. Improvement in the standard of living of people resulting in the greater demand for personal vehicles, a car interior has become more important as people are spending more time in cars.
3. More safety devices in the vehicles in the form of airbags and seat belts.
4. Ecological reforms for recycling of used cars have increased the number of textiles in an automobile.
5. Apart from interiors and safety, textiles have also come up with the solution to engineering problems such as tire reinforcement, acoustics protection, gas and air filtration.

Testings Required For Auto-Mobile Textiles

• Light Fastness
• Colour Fastness
• Tensile Strength
• Ageing
• Fogging/Emissions
• Dirt Resistance
• Abrasion
• Pilling
• Snagging
• Tear Strength
• Bursting Strength
• Dimensional Stability
• Drape
• Stain Repellency
• Water Wicking
• Compression
• Resistance To Microorganisms
• Flammability

Classification Of Automobile Textiles

The automobile products can be broadly classified into two categories:

1. Visible Components
2. Concealed Components

Visible Components

These components are those which add to the interior trim of the automobile to provide comfort and style. Apart from style some safety components also fall into this category, this includes:

1 Seat

The seat is probably the most important item in the car interior. It is the first thing the customer sees when the car door is opened and he or she will probably instinctively touch it; there is only one opportunity to make the most of this first impression. The seat is also the main interface of man and machine and seat comfort is of paramount importance.

Textiles have become by far the most widely used material in seat coverings and are beginning to be used in other areas of the seat in place of polyurethane foam. They are also used in a number of specialist cases in place of metal springs and the actual seat pan and seat back.

The use of one material; polyester, in the face fabric, polyester nonwoven in the cover laminate and polyester nonwoven also in the seat squab and cushion, would certainly simplify recycling and disassembly.

DuPont has developed polyester nonwoven fiber ‘clusters’, which can be formed into seat cushions and squabs in place of polyurethane foam. Benefits claimed to include 20% reduced weight and increased comfort through improved breathability and recyclability. With polyester-based material used as webbing and a polyester fabric covering and scrim, the whole seat in just one material becomes easily recycled.

2 Seat Cover

Tunnel Tie

Hope Webbing Company of Rhode Island, USA, has introduced yet another new method of securing seat covers over the foam cushion. It features a specially designed sleeve through which a drawcord passes. The sleeve is sewn to the edge of the seat cover, which is then drawn over the foam cushion and the cover is secured by pulling the cord tight.

Tunnel Tie is economical and simple to use without the need for hooks, ‘hog rings’ or plastic clips. It is also easier to disassemble, which could facilitate recycling, and seems to be especially suitable for detachable seat covers, which can be changed by the customer.

3-D Knitting Of Car Seat Covers

This highly advanced, computer-controlled knitting technique enables several conventional cuts and sews panels to be replaced with just a single 3-D shaped piece. Car seat covers can be knitted in just one piece; the single item includes all tubes, flaps and ties downs necessary for direct fitting. The labour intensive stages of panel cutting and sewing of up to 17 individual pieces of fabric are reduced to just one or two with no cutting waste.

The 3-D technique allows considerable design flexibility and creativity. Computer-assisted design ‘paint box’ systems facilitate design themes; visual appearance can be dramatically modified by changes in fabric construction, yarn type, and color. Logos can be accurately placed.

3 Headliners

Headliners are modular parts fitted tightly into the interior roof of a vehicle to provide aesthetics, sound absorption, thermal insulation and cushioning in a light-weight construction. They are semi-rigid modules consisting of at least three layers laminated together: an aesthetic facing fabric, a foam backing and the substrate, which is also referred to as the core.

At one time the headliner was simply a covering for the metal roof inside the car and consisted of a piece of fabric, PVC or some other material sometimes simply ‘slung’, i.e. held in place only at a few points. Over a last 20 years, they have been developed in a sophisticated module component. Nonwoven fabrics in headliners take the form of facings, backings or substrate depending on the engineering design of the particular module.

Nonwoven facings are made of needle punched, stitch-bonded or to a more limited extent hydroentangled fabrics produced from dry-laid spun-dyed PET fibres which compete with traditional warp knitted tricots.

The modern headliner is multiple laminates of up to seven or more components all joined together, see Figs 6.4 and 6.5. Each layer is there for a specific purpose either for aesthetics, to provide sound insulation, vibration damping or to provide rigidity to the whole structure.

The center core of polyurethane is bonded to two layers of chopped fiberglass rovings, one on each side. The fiberglass rovings are bound together and embedded in the thermoplastic material, i.e. hot-melt adhesive powder or hot-melt adhesive film, e.g. Xiro film, or a combination of both. These materials also act as the adhesive when the layers are joined together.