Investigating the Effect of Fabric and Lamination-Foam Properties on the Air Permeability of Laminated Headrest Fabrics

In the automotive industry, the interior component, which the customer first encounters is the seat. Customers have many expectations in terms of aesthetics, functionality, and comfort from the seats of the vehicle. When considering comfort in car seats, it is the backrest, cushion, headrest foam, and upholstery which are placed at the top the list. The seat upholstery in the vehicle has a composite structure including fabric, lamination foam, and backing scrim. This composite structure is combined with seat foam by using techniques such as traditional method or in-situ technology. In the traditional method, the upholstery is trimmed on the product's foam. In in-situ technology, polyurethane (PU) is injected into ready-placed upholstery. The advantage of in-situ technology is to make perfect trimming for curved foam designs. Concave shapes are more achieveable with in-situ production techniques, which adds to the safety and comfort of the headrest. In this in-situ process, an overflow failure may occur on the surface of the upholstery, when foam is injected (PU) with high pressure during the process. Overflow failure is not desired by the main automobile producers, from both aesthetical and quality aspects. In this study, the effect of lamination-foam and fabric on the air permeability of composite structures used in in-situ headrests was investigated. The surface structure of the in-situ headrest was also analyzed via stereo microscope. In order to evaluate the overflow behavior of PU injected foam, the weight, peeling strength, and air permeability of fabric and lamination foam types were tested. As a result of this study, it was observed that the air permeability of the laminated fabrics has an effect on the overflow failure on the headrest.

Automated summary

In the automotive industry, customers have high expectations for the aesthetics, functionality, and comfort of vehicle seats. Seat upholstery is a composite structure including fabric, lamination foam, and backing scrim, combined with seat foam using techniques like in-situ technology. In this study, the effect of lamination foam and fabric on the air permeability of in-situ headrests was investigated, showing that the air permeability of laminated fabrics impacts overflow failure.