A Paper on

TESTING OF NONWOVENS USED IN AUTOMOTIVE TEXTILES

DKTES Textile and Engineering Institute Rajwada, Ichalkaranchi-416115.

Submitted by: AKSHAY HANSRAJ BOHARA. 09TEXT07 (FINAL TT)

Abstract:
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The study is focused generally on automotive fabrics. Textiles, particularly fabrics, are changing rapidly in composition and construction for automotive interiors. This paper provides an overview of textile application in automotive industry. Automotive textiles represent one of the most valuable international markets for technical textiles. Here in this paper we have discussed about categorization of automotive textiles and explained briefly. Upholstery and air bags plays major role in automotive textiles. Automotive upholstery comes in a variety of materials and fabrics including vinyl, leather, cloth and velour. Fortunately, there are a number of inexpensive tricks that you can do to clean up the kind of minor accidents you'll encounter during your daily drive. The airbag and seat belts used as safety measures are one of the latest types of textiles in automobiles and have a potential market for technical textiles that has a considerable scope for growth and development. In this study we have also focused on textile application on seat belt, filters, interior components, tyres filters. Keywords: Textile; automotive; automotive upholstery; airbag

Introduction: With the rising level of automobile production and its corresponding worldwide stocks based on the rapid industrialization in Asia, Africa and Latin America plus the rising demand in Eastern Europe, the proportion of textiles in a motor car is increasing in response to more stringent comfort and safety needs in industrialized countries like the USA, Japan and Western Europe. Automotive textiles represent one of the most valuable international markets for technical textiles. Automobile textiles, which are non apparel textiles, are widely used in vehicles like cars, trains, buses, aircrafts and marine vehicles. Hence, the term automobile textile means all type of textile components e.g. fibers, filaments, yarns and the fabric used in automobiles. Automotive textile is an integral aspect of technical textile. Since it cannot be classified in apparel textile, it is more of a techno mechanical application of textile. Industrial textiles are widely used in transportation vehicles and systems including cars, trains, buses, airplanes and marine vehicles. Approximately 50 square yards of textile material is used in an average car for interior trim (seating areas headliners, side panels, carpets and trunk, lining, tires, filters, belts, hoses, airbags etc.)

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Nearly two third of the automobile textiles are for interior trim, i.e. seat cover, carpets and roof and door liners. The rest is utilized to reinforce tyres, hoses, safety belts, air bags, etc. Since it cannot be classified in apparel textile, it is more of a techno mechanical application of textile.

Classification of automotive textile:

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automotive fabrics preassembled interior components

airbags

upholtsery

carpets

seat belt

tyres

filters

Airbags The airbag and seat belts used as safety measures are one of the latest types of textiles in automobiles and have a potential market for technical textiles that has a considerable scope for growth and development. Because of government legislation and consumer interest, the applications have been extremely successful over the last ten to fifteen years.

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In the last decade, airbags or inflatable restraints have received noteworthy significance as a safeguard for the driver and the passengers in case of an accident. Initially, the bags were made for head-on collision, but now, there are many other safety devices like side impact bags, knee bolsters, side curtain, etc, available for safety in any type of crash. Because frontal collisions are a main reason of accidental deaths, airbags are being presented as a standard product in vehicles by legislation, which has given the quick increment of airbags business in the last decade. NHTSA and HHS report that airbag systems have played an important role in saving thousands of lives since 1985. In 2002 alone, due to the airbag system a 20 per cent reduction in fatalities resulting from fatal collisions has been observed.

Economic development of airbags: In 1999, there were 55 million vehicles with 81 million airbags. In 2004, the number of frontal airbag units was nearly 100 million and the number of side-impact airbags nearly 65 million. In the same year, nearly 23 per cent of the new vehicles in North America had side airbags for chest protection and 17 per cent had side airbags for head protection. By 2005, this has increased to 180 million airbags and 65 million vehicles. Fabric application demand has increased to 325 million square meters in 2005, and 83 tons of fibre, mostly nylon has been used. The world airbag market is estimated to rise from 66 million units in 1996 to over 200 million units in 2006, a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent. Over this decade, Europe will put in 60 million units, Asia-Pacific 30 million units and North America 24 million units. While North American and Western European markets are growing, considerable development is also seen in the international market. As new applications are developing for airbags, including rear seat bags, inflatable seat belts and an outside airbag system for pedestrians, new fabrics and combinations are being applied. The front and passenger bags have different requirements because of the distance from the occupant, but they both have rapid increment and deflation in a very short time span.
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Rollover bags must remain inflated for five seconds. In addition to new uses, expected trends include lighter fabric for use with newer "cold inflators," blended with materials like fabric and film, new coating polymers (Silicone now dominates having replaced neoprene).

How An Airbag Works? Airbags inflate, or deploy, quickly -- faster than the blink of an eye. Imagine taking one second and splitting it into one thousand parts. In the first 15 to 20 milliseconds, air bag sensors detect the crash and then send an electrical signal to fire the airbags. Typically a squib, which is a small explosive device, ignites a propellant, usually sodium azide. The azide burns with tremendous speed, generating nitrogen, which inflates the airbags. Within 45 to 55 milliseconds the airbag is supposed to be fully inflated. Within 75 to 80 milliseconds, the airbag is deflated and the event is over. Airbags may save lives and guard against severe injuries in high speed collisions, if designed properly. However, the speed with which airbags inflate generates tremendous forces. Passengers in the way of an improperly designed airbag can be killed or significantly injured. Unnecessary injuries also occur when airbags inflate in relatively minor crashes when they're not needed. In the past, the air bags were coated by Neoprene. Generally, coated air bags are preferred for rivers seat and uncoated air bags for side seats. Recently, silicon coated and uncoated air bags have become very popular due to advantages such as extended service life, adaptation to heavy duty vehicles, reduced module size, cost reduction, improved recyclability.

Upholstery: Automotive upholstery comes in a variety of materials and fabrics including vinyl, leather, cloth and velour. Maintaining the durability and cleanliness of automotive upholstery can be quite
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expensive, as many upholstery professionals charge expensive rates to remove the smallest stain. Fortunately, there are a number of inexpensive tricks that you can do to clean up the kind of minor accidents you'll encounter during your daily drive. The formation of automotive upholstery involves the amalgamation of three layers i.e. face fabric, foam and backing material. The conventional method used for this purpose is Flame laminate on. But this process is environmentally unfriendly and sometimes the laminates lack porosity which affect the sound absorption and comfort. Hence, new technologies such as hot melt adhesive application are being introduced. Hot melt adhesives are solvent-free adhesives that are characteristically solid at temperatures below 180 degrees F ( F), are low viscosity fluids above 180F, and rapidly set upon cooling. The development of hot melt adhesive technology stemmed from the previous use of molten wax for bonding. When this method no longer satisfied performance needs, 100 percent thermoplastic systems were introduced. Today, hot melt adhesives are used in a variety of manufacturing processes, including bookbinding, product assembly, and box and carton heat sealing. There are a number of hot melt adhesives in use, with the most common being those used for hot melt pressure sensitive adhesive applications: Ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymers, compatible with paraffin, the original hot melt; Styrene-isoprene-styrene (SIS) copolymers; Styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) copolymers; Ethylene ethyl acrylate copolymers (EEA); and Polyurethane reactive (PUR).

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Need for upholstery: Improving cost-effectiveness Working with contours Easily customized Attractive Durable Strength and weight Flame resistance Abrasion resistance

Types of fabric used: Nonwovens fabrics Composite fabrics Coating fabrics Foam fabrics Upholstery , trimming fabrics Filter fabric Belt fabric

Upholstery applications: The following are the upholstery applications Auto floor mats Automotive carpeting Automotive seating Seat covers Seat belts Air bags Steering wheel covers
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 Automotive headliners Auto trim/supported PVC Auto trim/ leather Auto trim/ other automotive upholstery Car covers.

Carpets: Carpets are manufactured either by tufting or needle felting. Carpets made by tufting are based upon a supportive backing which is used as a base to accept the pile yarns which becomes the uppermost surface. Carpet backing is usually spun bonded and is made by an integrated process in which polymer chips are melted and filaments are extracted through a die. Mainly polyester is used in making this carpet backing whereas a blend of nylon and polyester is used in some occasions. But during recent times polypropylene is assuming great importance considering the recyclability. The process of needling has got the advantages of more productivity at relatively low cost. But carpets produced by needling cannot be used to cover sharp counters especially foot areas and transmission tunnels. Superior needled material has a good filling which is determined by the amount of vertically oriented fibres at a given stitch density. Generally, carpets are made by the combination of a variety of functional layers into a single unit and these types of carpets are very popular. A layer of adhesive is applied on these carpets during the initial stages stiffen the whole carpet structure and some cases specially formulated backing compounds are used to impart unique functional properties. A heavy mass layer that acts as soundproof materials is common to all automobile carpets. Carpet that has been finished is sent to a modeling station where it is pressed to deep draw mould to form it with appropriate dimensions. In European market visco-elastic polyurethane foam is used for backing while in American market, cotton fibre pad is used. The trend in USA is towards more molded polyurethane foam due to its superior acoustical and physical properties.

Seat belt: The seat belt is an energy absorbing device that is designed to keep the load imposed on a victim's body during a crash down to survivable limits. Basically, it is designed to offer non
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recoverable extension to decrease the deceleration forces that the body comes across in a crash. Non recoverable extension is significant to prevent the occupants from being restrained into their seats and sustaining whiplash injuries right away after a collision. To prevent more webbing from paying out after an accident, the automatic belt has a locking device known as inertia reel. An efficient seat belt will only permit its wearer to move forward a maximum of about 30 cm to avoid contact with any fixed parts of the car. It is believed that the seat belts were invented concurrently in America as well as Sweden. The only difference was that the American belt was a strap to encircle the waist and the Swedish belt was a diagonal band made to defend the upper body. Now, a blend of the two designs is a most prevalent arrangement and is called the 3-point belt, which is secured by two fittings on the floor and a third on the sidewall or pillar. Racing drivers wear other patterns, particularly two shoulder straps and a lap belt. The earliest automotive seat belts were set up and were adjustable so that they could fit the wearer manually. The automatic belt superseded this pattern by providing the wearer more space to move. Seat belts are available in multiple layers and are woven in narrow fabrics in twill or satin fabrication from high tenacity polyester yarns, generally 320 ends of 1100 dtex or 260 ends of 1670 dtex yarn. These structures permit highest yarn packing within a given area for highest strength and the trend is to utilize coarser yarns for good abrasion resistance. For ease they require to be softer and more flexible along the length, but rigidity is needed along the width to facilitate them to slide easily between buckles and retract smoothly into housings. Edges require being scuff resistant, but not disagreeably rigid and the fabric must be resistant to microorganisms. Nylon was utilized in some early seat belts, but due to of its higher UV degradation resistance; polyester is now widely used worldwide. Performance standards: Normally, the performance standards require a seat belt to restrain a passenger weighing 90 kg involved in a collision at 50 km/h (about 30 mph) into a fixed object. Straight pull tensile strength should be at least 30 KN/50 mm. Other tests include accelerated ageing and in the made-up form, resistance to fastening and unfastening 10,000 times. The seat belt must be long

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lasting without any significant deterioration. In many cars, after ensuring the inclusion of the airbag, efforts have been made to link the function of the two devices (seat belt and airbag).

Tyre: The textile material in a type is used mainly for reinforcement. Textile materials such as viscose, glass and steel cords provide dimensional stability as well as reinforcement. Dimensional stability is an essential requirement for tyres. Strength is provided to tyres mainly by the web of fibres that lies with the body of the tyre called Carcass. Filters: Automotive Filters: Optimizing Performance and Minimizing Environmental Impact is a new report from International Newsletters which studies 50 of the leading international companies from across the broad spectrum of the automotive filter industry and examines their strategies for dealing with this new era. The automotive filter industry is emerging into a new era as political, economic and environmental factors reshape the worlds car industry. New geographical regions are gaining in importance, new technologies are being introduced and while the overall market for automotive filters is set to grow strongly, it is increasingly difficult to anticipate where that growth will be found and how best to exploit it.

Types of filters:

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 Filtration media (synthetic and cellulose based) Cabin air filters Engine air intake filters (including specialist high-performance filters) Oil filters (full flow and by-pass) Diesel particulate filters.

Hoses, belts and linen are important components car engine which are reinforced with textile materials. Automotive filters are largely made of textiles. Some example of the filters used in automotive are largely made of textiles. Some examples of the filter are air filter and oil filter. The function of these filters is to filter the fluid before it enters the engine because of delicate machine component may be destroyed if the dust particle enters into the engine.

Testing of Non Wovens used in Automobiles:1. Testing of Sound Absorbancy of Fabrics:-

Basically, In this Instrument Absorbency properties of Fabrics are being tasted. Fabric is Placed in between the sound source and sound receiver i.e. decibel meter. Control Panel is been attached to the sound source. This control panel passes a signal to produce a certain decibel of sound through sound source. As this sound source emits a sound of known decibel, it has to pass through the fabrics in its path. And then finally onto receiver where decibel meter is been placed.
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As this Instrument is Airtight, no Sound leakage is possible so, all the waves of sound pass through the fabric itself. Now, this fabric absorbs some sound and remaining is allowed to let go through it. The receiver where decibel meter is fixed checks the sound level and thus the absorbency of fabric is calculated from the source decibel and receivers decibel.

2. Air Permeability Tester:-

Specifications of Air Permeabilty TesterSample Dimensions Size: 5 x 12 cm min (2 in x 5 in) Thickness: 3 mm max. (0.12 in) Measurement Range Air permeability between: 4 to 400 cfm (cb.ft/sq.ft min) 10 to 3000 l/m2 / s at p = 200 Pascal 10 to 3000 mm/s at p = 200 Pascal .

In this Instrument A fabric is Placed between the two portion of the machine. Then thiers a source of emission of known amount of Air. And on other side thiers a receiver. Thus Permeabilty of fabric is been checked. Reading of this is directly notified on the screen of the machine. 3. Fabric Thickness Tester:-

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Specifications of Thickness Tester: Measuring range 0 - 10 mm Resolution 0.01 mm Accuracy 0.02 mm Display LCD 6 digit Temperature range 10 - 45 C Air humidity 85 % RH max Dimensions 250 x 310 x 300 mm (LxWxH) Weight net 23 kg Conclusion:Non woven's are having very high potential scope in automobiles. So, there is more and more innovations carried out to make more out of it. Testing of such products is very essential. Thus, Indirectly there is also high scope for testing of such products. Reference: www.fibre2fashion.com www.ezinearticles.com www.freepatentsonline.com www.google.co.in

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