Experimental Research of Automotive Needlepunched Carpets at Thermoforming Temperatures

Tensile properties with different thermoforming conditions and deformation mechanism at thermoforming temperatures of automotive needlepunched carpets made up of three layers of different materials were reported.Investigations on the tensile properties were performed as a function of thermoforming temperature,extensile speed and fiber orientation based on an orthogonal experiment design.The experimental results show that the automotive carpets are rate-dependent anisotropic one and very sensitive to the forming temperature.The tensile properties are strongly depended on the forming temperature when compared with the extensile speed and the fiber orientation.Experiments only varying with the temperature were performed because of the dominative effect of the temperature.Different deformation performances were observed with different temperatures.Deformation mechanisms at the thermoforming temperatures were presented to explain the nonlinear trend of the ultimate elongation with the temperatures based on the combination of the experimental observations and the corresponding polymer theories.