Undercover for vehicles having high elasticity and rigidity and method for manufacturing the same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12043186-B2
Application number	US-202218084913-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 20, 2022
Priority date	Apr 22, 2019
Publication date	Jul 23, 2024
Grant date	Jul 23, 2024

Abstract

Disclosed are an undercover for vehicles with high elasticity and rigidity and a method of manufacturing the same. The undercover for vehicles with high elasticity and rigidity may include a needle-punched nonwoven fabric having a multi-layer structure of felt layers including a first PET fiber and a low-melting-point PET fiber, and each of the felt layers may have improved tensile strength and have optimized fiber alignment, to thereby improve the binding between fibers, mechanical rigidity and elasticity, as well as to reduce the weight of components, improve durability and secure harmlessness and inline workability.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An undercover for vehicles, comprising:
a needle-punched nonwoven fabric formed by needle-punching a first nonwoven fabric layer comprising one or more first felt layers with a second nonwoven fabric layer formed on the first nonwoven fabric layer and comprising one or more second felt layers,
wherein each of the first felt layer and the second felt layer comprises a fiber web comprising an amount of about 1 to 40% by weight of a first polyethylene terephthalate fiber and an amount of about 60 to 99% by weight of a low-melting-point polyethylene terephthalate fiber based on the total weight of the fiber web,
wherein each of the first nonwoven fabric layer and the second nonwoven fabric layer includes the first felt layer and the second felt layer which are alternatively laminated in a multilayer structure of two or three layers thereof,
wherein the first polyethylene terephthalate fiber has a tensile strength of about 3 to 4 g/De,
wherein the low-melting-point polyethylene terephthalate fiber has a tensile strength of about 3 to 4 g/De, and
wherein a number of times of needle punching of the needle-punched nonwoven fabric is about 20 to 80 punching/cm 2 .

2. The undercover according to claim 1 , wherein each of the first nonwoven fabric layer and the second nonwoven fabric layer comprises fiber webs comprising fibers of the first felt layer and the second felt layer randomly mixed in horizontal and vertical alignments.

3. The undercover according to claim 1 , wherein each of the first nonwoven fabric layer and the second nonwoven fabric layer has a weight per unit area of about 300 to 750 g/m 2 .

4. The undercover according to claim 1 , wherein the first nonwoven fabric layer and the second nonwoven fabric layer are repeatedly laminated in a multilayer structure of three to five layers thereof.

5. The undercover according to claim 1 , wherein the first polyethylene terephthalate fiber has a melting point of about 240 to 270° C., a fiber length of about 48 to 76 mm.

6. The undercover according to claim 1 , wherein the low-melting-point polyethylene terephthalate fiber has a melting point of about 105 to 180° ° C., a fiber length of about 48 to 76 mm.

7. The undercover according to claim 1 , wherein the needle-punched nonwoven fabric has a weight per unit area of about 600 to 1,500 g/m 2 .

Assignees

• Hyundai Motor Co Ltd
• Kia Corp
• Hado Fnc Co Ltd

Inventors

• Kim Seong Je
• Kim Keun Young
• Kim Tae Yoon
• Lee Jung Wook
• Kim Young Su
• Ha Jong Eun

Classifications

• B32B37/02

  characterised by a sequence of laminating steps, e.g. by adding new layers at consecutive laminating stations · CPC title

• B32B2367/00

  Polyesters, e.g. PET, i.e. polyethylene terephthalate · CPC title

• B32B2305/20

  in the form of a non-woven mat · CPC title

• B32B38/04

  Punching, slitting or perforating · CPC title

• B32B2038/0072

  Orienting fibers · CPC title