Automotive Textiles

Automotive Textiles
MLV Textile and Engineering College

Bhilwara, Rajasthan
Introduction
Textiles in transportation are classed as technical because of the very high
performance specifications and special properties required. Seat coverings,
for example, are not easily removable for cleaning and indeed in
automobiles they are fixed in place and must last the lifetime of the car
without ever being put in a washing machine. In addition they have to
withstand much higher exposure to daylight and damaging ultraviolet
radiation (UV) and because they are for public use they must satisfy
stringent safety requirements such as flame retardancy. In more functional
applications, textiles are used in articles as diverse as tyres, safety devices,
battery separators, brake and clutch linings, air filters, parts of the
suspension, gears, drive belts, gaskets and crash helmets.
Upholstery general requirements
Interior textiles must generally last the life of the vehicle and show no
significant signs of wear for at least 2–3 years. Car interiors are subjected
to the full range of temperatures (-20 to 100+°C) and relative humidity
(0–100%).
Fibre selection
Yarn types
Fabric structure
Fibre Requirement
For seat coverings the main technical requirements are resistance to
sunlight both colour fading and fabric degradation by UV, abrasion
resistance, for public transport vehicles, reduced flammability. Seats
frequently get damp from contact with wet clothing and, in the case of
seats in public transport, subject to abuse by vandals and other
irresponsible individuals. The fabrics need to be resistant to mildew, hard
wearing and strong with high tear strength. Soil resistance and easy clean
ability are also necessary.
Fibres used
Testing of upholstery fabric
Color fastness Bursting strength Surface resistivity
Crocking (wet and Dimensional Clean ability
dry) stability Stain repellency
Light fastness Stiffness Fogging
Abrasion Drape Flammability resistance
Pilling Crease recovery Water wicking
Tear strength Steam strength Accelerated ageing
Tensile strength Peel bond Resistance to
Stretch and set Compression microorganisms
Stretch and recovery Air permeability Snagging
Safety Devices
• Seat belts:
Seat belts are important component of safety. Research concluded that
seat belts could reduce fatal and serious injuries by 50%. The wearing
of both front and back seat belts is now compulsory in many countries
of the world and all new cars made.
• Air bag
Air bags are used in combination with seat belts. Now many car
companies have made it compulsory to have airbags for front
passengers. It is also concluded that the use of an airbag in combination
with seat belt reduces the risk of serious head injury by 81% compared
with 50% reduction by use of a belt alone
Seat belts
The narrow fabric is a multiple layer woven twill or sometimes satin, using
typically 320 ends of 1100dtex or 260 ends of 1670dtex high-tenacity
continuous filament polyester yarn.
These constructions are chosen because they allow maximum yarn packing
within a given area for maximum strength and good abrasion resistance Belts
need to be as soft and flexible as possible along the length direction but as rigid
as possible in the width direction so they can slide easily through buckles and to
retract smoothly into housing.
The material must be resistant to UV degradation and retain its strength for the
life of the car.
Some of the first seat belts were made from nylon but they are now almost
exclusively made from polyester because of its superior resistance to UV
degradation.
Air Bags
Airbags operate by a triggering device, which sets off explosive chemicals
when it senses an impact at above approximately 35km/h is about to
happen. This causes the bag to inflate, which cushions and restrains the
human body from hitting a harder object.
It inflates and deflates all within a fraction of a second – less than the time
to blink an eye. The fabric from which the bag is made must be able to
withstand the force of the hot propellant chemicals and more importantly
they must not penetrate through the fabric to burn the skin of the car
occupant. Polyester is not used for airbags because its thermal properties
are not suitable.
Air Bags
Airbags are typically woven from high tenacity multi-filament nylon 66
yarns in the approximate dtex range of 210 to 840 with 470 being the most
frequently used in Europe and Japan. Fabric weights, uncoated are about
170 and 220g/m2.
The fabric must be strong with high tear strength, high anti-seam slippage
and needs to have controlled air permeability,
It must be capable of being folded up in a small space for over 10 years or
more without deterioration and, in the case of coated fabric, without
blocking or sticking together.
Carpets
This was once considered a luxury item but is now an essential part of
interior trim not only for the aesthetics and sensual comfort but also
because of the part it plays in noise and vibration control. There are about
3.5– 4.5m2 of carpet in each car, made by either tufting or needle-
punching.
Approximately one-third of all cars have carpets tufted mainly from bulked
continuous filament (BCF) nylon yarns. The rest, about two-thirds and
gradually increasing is needle-punched, mainly from polyester but also from
increasing amounts of polypropylene.
Needle-punching has been much refined in recent years and is now
producing very attractive materials that are comparable in quality with
tufted carpets.
Carpets
Tyres
The modern tyre has its origins in the work of three pioneers, Goodyear
who discovered vulcanization of rubber in the USA in 1839, RW
Thompson, a Scottish engineer, who developed and patented the concept
of the pneumatic tyre in 1845,and Dunlop, who in 1888 first used textiles, a
canvas fabric, as rubber tyre reinforcement.
Early tyres used woven fabric which was later replaced by a unidirectional
arrangement of cords sometimes with a small number of weft threads
across them. The cords are formed by twisting yarns together to build up a
strong cord in two or three separate operations. Twist direction is usually in
the same direction for the first two operations and in the reverse direction
for the final process. The car radial tyre contains about 4 to 7% of its total
weight of textile material; cross-ply tyres contain much more, about 21%.
Tyres
The usual reasons for tyre performance limitations is differing elastic
properties between the rubber and the introduced fibre,which in turn give
rise to poor fibre–rubber bonds, the build-up of heat and hence poor
durability.
Cotton was replaced by the first man-made fibre rayon. Improvements
continued and eventually high tenacity rayon yarns were developed. Nylon
was used first in aircraft tyres where toughness and light weight were the
important parameters. Both nylon 6 and 66 were used but these fibres have
the disadvantage of ‘flatspotting’ which is not generally acceptable.
Tyres
Nylon however is used in in countries, which have poorer road surfaces. In
addition nylon is used extensively on tyres for off-the-road vehicles such as
tractors and other farm vehicles.
Thermal instability limitations of polyester can also give rise to problems in
tyre manufacture, but despite this, polyester is the least expensive material
for tyre cord, and so it is the most extensively used fibre throughout the
world for car tyres.
Aramids offer the highest strength-to-weight ratios coupled with high
temperature resistance and are well suited to speciality cars and aircraft.
Some high-performance car tyres and quality bicycle tyres are made using
aramids but the limitation for high-volume production cars is cost.
Filters
There are about a dozen different kinds of filter used in cars but only
about half use textile materials. Paper is used in many applications such as
the oil filter and carburettor air filter, although non-wovens are used in
some cars for the latter application.
Filters
There are three basic ways in which
the filters work. The first is by
mechanically filtering out solid
particles through fine pores in the
nonwoven fabric. The second is by
imparting an electrostatic charge to
the fibre, which then attracts solid
particles electrostatically. The third
mechanism, is by the use of activated
carbon which adsorbs gases and is
therefore also capable of removing
odours.
Headliners
The modern headliner is a

multiple laminate of up to
seven or more components all
joined together. 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.
Headliners
Applications of Textiles in Automobile

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