10 Questions You Should to Know about Automotive Felt Fabric

In line with new and improved automotive safety standards and vehicle developments, needle felt leads the way as a vital material in airbag cover manufacturing.

Airbags are a crucial component in overall vehicle safety features. Although an airbag’s sole purpose is to keep car occupants safe, how are airbags themselves protected? After all, they are supposed to last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Goto Glory Tang New Material to know more.

Airbags need a cover that can withstand harsh environments while also being fragile enough to allow the airbag to inflate in a fraction of a second. Through working with all the major car brands globally,

ALT has developed a new airbag cover made from needle felt that meets OEM’s stringent testing requirements.

In this article, we will outline how we created this enhanced airbag cover and its many features and benefits.

Today’s Vehicles Require Lightweight Solutions

Fifteen years is a long time for materials to waste away or become weakened by vibrations and other vehicle movements.

If the airbag inflates, that explosion must be contained to protect the car occupants.

On top of these, the cover also needs to guide the airbag in the right direction so it does not tear or malfunction.

An airbag cover clearly needs to meet a lot of functionality requirements.

How do we also ensure we are meeting updated automotive features?

Having previously worked with PP non-wovens to create a metal bucket and plastic top airbag cover, this proved to be too heavy to continue developing.

We are now investing in needle felt material to craft sleeker covers due to the demand to keep electric and autonomous vehicles as lightweight as possible, while also retaining their shape and function for the vehicle lifetime.

How We Keep Car Occupants Safe

After rigorous trialling using our ovens, moulding and die-cutting tools, we were able to begin moulding needle felt into different structures. It is lightweight, malleable and easy to work with.

Needle felt is made from PES (polyethersulfone), this is a PET-based material with bico fibres. The 2D or 3D moulded felt comes as a raw material with varying thicknesses on a roll that looks like a carpet.

The Process

1) The fabric is heated up in a convex oven at a specific temperature and compressed in the mould under a load.

2) The PES material, together with the bico elements, melts together homogeneously and then becomes a specific density under pressure.

3) We use this procedure to make 2D and 3D shapes depending on which moulds we need.

4) When the needle felt is dried, it is taken out of the mould and cut and bent into the required form.

5) The cutting machine creates perforated tear lines and creates a hinge (like a clam) which enables it to shut around the airbag and inflator.

Redesigning Airbag Covers for The Future

Our needle felt airbag covers could reduce the weight of typical covers and airbag housing by up to 90%! Old covers were too rugged to position in car seats and protruded at awkward angles.

We can simply weld or stitch the cover closed and then put foam or leather fabric over the airbag cover within the seat. This cover easily follows the seat’s contours without protruding through the surface as it is far more pliable.

The key features of needle felt airbag covers are:

• • Compactness: they require minimum space.
  • Low weight: when the materials are melted and moulded, they are a lot less dense than previous plastic or metal covers.
  • Temperature resistance: they can withstand high-temperature inflation gases under short-term exposure.
  • Cost-effective: compared to the current airbag cover solution, it is less expensive or else costs around the same.
  • High quality: they are made from bico fibres that provide high strength, hardness and good chemical resistance. They have excellent sliding properties and good electrical insulation properties.
  • Durability: the PET-derived needle felt is highly durable in a compacted state over many years.
  • Chemical resistance: needle felt has high resistance to abrasion and low absorption of humidity.

A Solid Structure for Future Cost Savings

Our core engineering team continuously research and develop based on our customer’s needs to ensure they are always ahead of the demands, such as catering to new lightweight vehicle components.

As well as airbag covers, we also provide automotive labels (including RFID), protective components, printed electronics and inflator seals. ALT offers comprehensive solutions that continuously add value, so you do not need to scramble for profitable materials. Why not check out our airbag cover solutions, as well as all our other automotive products.

Get in touch with our expert team for more information today.

Felt fabric is believed to be amongst the oldest forms of fabric in existence. It’s unique in its construction, texture, and its numerous uses — ranging from clothing such as hats, coats, and boots, to crafting materials and, yes, even rug pads.

But what is felt really? We're glad you asked.

What is felt fabric?

Felt is a fabric made from natural or synthetic fibers that are interlocked or matted together. It’s mostly made from wool but it can also be made from synthetic fibers, such as acrylic and rayon (think yarn fibers).

In general, you’ve got three main categories of felt: natural fiber, synthetic fiber, and combined.

Natural fiber felt can come from cotton, animal fur, or wool. To create combined felt — you guessed it — you combine the natural with synthetic such as acrylic, nylon, or polyester.

However, felt is a bit more unique than you might think. Unlike most fabrics that are woven or knitted together, felt is made from a process that combines heat, moisture, and pressure to form an interlocked, durable fabric.

Origins of felt fabric

We don’t have much consensus on the origins of felt fabric — it’s THAT old. Most likely it originated in Asia several thousand years ago, where they used it to make tents and clothing.

Regardless of where felt came from, one thing is clear: felt has withstood the test of time. Basically, it was damn good back then, and it’s still damn good now.

How is felt fabric made?

Felt is made by applying heat, moisture, and pressure to fibers to interlock them into a durable fabric. The general method of making felt has remained unchanged over the years, but some differences do exist.

Here’s how people get it done these days (with wool). This is a kind of long process, so buckle in.

1. The wool is separated into its different colors — white, gray, or brown.
2. It’s then cleaned to remove debris caught in the wool. (Have you been up close to a sheep before? They are not the cleanest of animals.)
3. The wool is put into a machine that loosens and separates the clumps that naturally form.
4. Next, the wool goes through a process called carding. (No, this doesn’t mean asking the wool for it’s ID to check if it’s over 21.) Carding involves untangling the wool by passing it through cylinders to form a standardized web. If you have a fluffy dog, it’s kind of like what happens if you use one of those needle-type dog brushes.
5. The carded wool is combined to create batts that are rolled in preparation for felting.
6. Layers of batts are combined using steam on a conveyor belt.
7. The combined layers of batts then go through a process called “hardening,” which uses a drop-down plate that applies force to the batts, further matting the fibers.
8. Fulling is next, where the fibers are fed through a set of upper and lower steel rollers which are covered with rubber or hard plastic to enable the batts to move about. This process shrinks the batts and also hardens them.
9. The felt is then cleaned to remove impurities and any chemicals used in the process.
10. The felt is then dyed.
11. Then the felt is laid out to dry. The felt fabric that isn't dyed goes directly from washing to drying.
12. Then the felt goes through a “pressing” process to even out the felt and ensures consistent thickness in the fabric. In some cases, the pressing process is used to further interlock the fibers.
13. Finally, the felt is shaved to remove uneven edges and unlocked fibers from the fabric.

For combined felt, the natural and synthetic fibers go into big open cylinders that have steel nails inside to help with combining the different fibers.

Afterward, they are carded and the rest of the process is similar to what we outlined for wool felting.

Types of felt fabric

As we mentioned, there are three main types of felt: natural, synthetic, and combined.

• Natural fiber. Made from 100% natural fibers such as wool, furs, or cotton.
• Synthetic fiber. Made from synthetic fibers such as acrylic, rayon, polyester, and nylon.
• Combined fibers. Made from a combination of natural and synthetic fibers, most commonly a mix of wool and acrylic.

But! There’s also different types within that too. Let’s dive into a few of those here.

Crafting acrylic felt

Alright, this is probably the type of felt you know the best. The felt you’d find in a kid’s project or what you’d find at Michael’s.

These are synthetic felt fibers that use interlocking acrylic. Why is this the OG crafting felt? A few reasons.

First, they’re stiffer than natural fiber felt, yet easier to cut. Two, they’re cheaper than other types of felt. And three, they can take on different pigments really well so you can dye them all different types of fun colors.

Eco-friendly felts

Made from recycled plastics, these are similar to acrylic felts (made by interlocking plastics), but more eco-friendly (surprise surprise). This type of felt also makes excellent craft material because it's stiff, coarse, and waterproof.

Eco-friendly felts can be made from recycled felt, yarn fibers, or leftover carpet fibers. Considering the “eco-friendly” in the name, it makes sense that this felt doesn’t use any chemicals, glues, or adhesives so they’re non-toxic — great for kiddos.

The Eco-Plush rug pad is one such example of this. (So I mean, we’re not biased or anything, but it’s basically the best kind of felt fabric.