GB2176511A - Woven fabric and method for making same - Google Patents

Abstract

A mouldable woven fabric having an inelastic extensibility of at least 15% may be produced from a heat shrunk or heat shrinkable yarn or from an undrawn or partially oriented yarn. A fabric system may comprise a mouldable fabric and a coordinating (e.g. apparently identical) fabric which is not mouldable. Such a fabric system may be used e.g. on motor vehicle interiors, the mouldable fabric being intended for door panels and the like. The inelastic extensibility is generated by heat shrinkage. The fabric is inelastically extensible under mechanical stress or heat. The yarn is a continuous filament core which is inelastically extensible; staple surface fibres are attached to the core. The yarn is air textured.

Description

SPECIFICATION Woven fabric and method for making same This invention relates to woven fabric.

Woven fabric is frequently used as a trim for automobile door panels. While it has been the practice to provide a relatively flat supporting base for the fabric trim, projecting and indented parts such as handles, arm rests, and storage recesses being separately trimmed, it is nowadays increasingly desired to take care of such features together with the main trim and to apply such main trim as a single piece of fabric to relatively deeply drawn panels. This puts great strain on a woven fabric, which tends to burst where it is stretched over convex parts of the panel.

Accordingly, stretch fabrics have been designed for such use, which can accommodate the strain which arises from adapting to the panel contours.

A disadvantage here, however, is that those parts of the fabric that are stretched during application to the contoured panel remain under tension and so stress the adhesive bond to the panel which consequently works loose over a period of time.

The present invention provides means of overcoming such problems.

The invention comprises a mouldable woven fabric having an inelastic extensibility of at least 15%.

The fabric may have an inelastic extensibility of at least 15% in both warp and weft directions.

The fabric may comprise yarn which is inelastically extensible by at least 15%.

The yarn or fabric may be inelastically extensible under purely mechanical stress or with the assistance of heat.

The inelastic extensibility property may be generated by shrinkage, which may be heat shrinkage.

The inelastic extensibility property may, however, be the result of using an undrawn or partially oriented yarn.

The fabric may be made of yarn having an elastically inextensible core, which may be a continuous filament core, and may have staple surface fibres attached.

The yarn may be textured, for example air jet textured.

The fabric may be made from a heat shrunk yarn, or from a heat shrinkable yarn, shinkage being effected in fabric form.

The invention also comprises a fabric system comprising a mouldable fabric as above described and a second fabric which coordinates with said mouldable fabric in appearance at least in respect of colour or texture or pattern or other visual feature, but which is not mouldable. The two fabrics may of course be apparently identical save for the fact that one is mouldable while the other is not.

The one may then be suitable for lining a deep drawn panel, while the other may be an upholstery fabric, so that a motor vehicle may have door andl or like deep drawn panels lined with the mouldable fabric and seats covered with the upholstery fabric.

The invention also comprises a method for making a mouldable fabric comprising a treatment which gives said fabric an inelastic extensibility of at least 15%.

Said method may comprise treating yarn prior to weaving or treating the fabric after weaving.

The treatment may be a dry heat treatment or a steam treatment.

Embodiments of fabrics, systems and methods for making the same will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 illustrates an inelasticlly extensible core yarn, Figure 2 illustrates a fabric made from such a yarn, Figure 3 illustrates a fabric made from a shrinkable yarn, Figure 4 illustrates the fabric of Figure 3 after shrinking, Figure 5 illustrates an inelastically extensible fabric and a deep drawn panel on to the contours of which the fabric can be moulded, in side elevation, and Figure 6 illustrates a fabric system comprising a coordinated mouldable fabric and an upholstery fabric.

The mouldable fabric illustrated in Figures 2, 4, 5 and 6 comprises a yarn 12 as shown in Figure 1 comprising an inelasticaliy extensible continuous filament polymer core 13 and staple surface fibres 14. The core 13 may be made for example of polyvinyl chloride fibre, while the surface fibres may comprise polyester fibres that have been combined with the core in an air texturing jet. As seen in Figure 1, the effect of the jet may be to give the fibres a "wrapped" effect simulating twist.

The fabrics illustrated are 2/2 twill fabrics made from identical warp and weft.

The fabric illustrated in Figure 2 is made directly from a shrunk polyvinyl chloride core or an undrawn polyester or partially oriented polyester core yarn which has polyester fibres assembled with it in an air texturing jet. Said yarns are very tension sensitive and should be handled carefully during processing and weaving, care being taken especially to impose no substantial tension which would give rise to stretching of the yarn.

The shrinkage of the p.v.c. core yarn can be brought about in different ways, one simple way being to steam the yarns in package form. Since a shrinkage of some 39% can be effected using a steam treatment at 100"C, it is usually necessary to use a collapsible package former and rewind the yarn continuously through a suitable treatment chamber with a substantial overfeed.

On the other hand, the yarn - in a non-shrinkable state, could be woven into a fabric which is subse quently shrunk by a heat or steam treatment as by being passed over a perforate table through which live steam is admitted to the travelling fabric web.

A thus-shrunk fabric can subsequently be pulled out on a stenter to a uniform width, but not so much as to remove much of the inelastic extensi bility of the fabric. Such a treatment will of course affect the warp and the weft yarns - assuming they are of similar composition -equally, or substantially so depending upon the nature of the weave and the extent to which the fabric is subsequently stentered.

A fabric made from pre-shrunk or undrawn or partially oriented warp and weft yarns will of course have warp - and weft-wise inelastic extensibility proportional to that of the yarns. With p.v.c.

core yarn dry heat at 1500C can bring about a 50% shrinkage, while higher temperatures and/or the use of steam can bring about even higher shrinkages. The use of undrawn yarn could theoretically result in an inelastic extensibility of around 200%.

The extent of shrinkage is illustrated by comparison of Figure 3 with Figure 4, which shows a fabric made from a yarn which has not been shrunk. Figure 4 shows the fabric after shrinking. Typical dimensions before and after shrinkage are indicated by E (the width of a given number of ends) and P (the length containing a given number of picks) for the unshrunk fabric and e and p the equivalent measures for the shrunk fabric. e may typically be 75% of E and p 60% of P. Extensibilities up to 60% in either warp or weft direction are feasible, however, and can be commercially useful for presently envisaged purposes.

Figure 5 shows in cross-section a fabric 12 like the ones illustrated in Figures 2 and 4 together with a panel 51 of an automobile door which has projections 51a and depressions 51b forming an arm rest, handgrip and other features. The fabric 12 is to be affixed to the panel 51b so as to conform to the contours thereof and to be secured thereto by adhesive, being moulded to the shape of the panel under pressure from a die member of complementary shape (not shown).

it will be seen that at the projection 51a the fab ric 12 will required to be stretched by the moulding operation by some 15%, this being the excess of length from the point x to the point of measured along the surface of the projection as compared to the straight line distance. The recession 51b needs an extension of some 25%. Thus for this particular panel, an inelastic extensibility of 25% would be appropriate, although a lower level can be toler ated than the maximum extensibility required if some small part of such extensibility can be ac commodated in elastic extensibility - a small elastic restoring force can perhaps be tolerated in many circumstances provided it is not sufficient to have a detrimental effect on the adhesive bond to the panel.A fabric with an inelastic extensibility of no more than 15% might not be suitable for a panel which in some places required 30% extensibility, though it would clearly be perfectly adequate for shallower panels. Fabrics having less than 15% maximum inelastic extensibility would in general not meet the requirements for deep drawn auto mobile door panels.

Of course fabrics with any significant inelastic extensibility have not been produced, except unin tentionally, perhaps, it being considered generally that inelastic extensibility is a fabric fault to be avoided so far as possible. Fabrics indeed are fre quently stentered and heat set so as to remove any trace of inelastic extensibility. This is in sharp contrast to the present invention, in which stentering may be used to leave in a defined and substantial amount of inelastic extensibility.

A particular advantage of mouldable fabrics according to the present invention is that they can be readily coordinated with regular fabrics, that is to say fabrics without any inelastic extensibility.

Thus as shown in Figure 6 a fabric system can be produced comprising a mouldable fabric 61 like fabrics shown in Figure 4 which is applied to door panels in an automobile, and a second fabric 62 which is an upholstery fabric used on automobile seats. As shown, for ease of illustration, the two fabrics 61, 62 have like pattern - a herringbone tweed pattern in this instance - the only discernible difference in the illustration being that the pattern of the mouldable fabric 61 is a little more compact, due to the shrinkage which the fabric has undergone. The fabrics can be otherwise identical in appearance, in texture, in colour or in any combination of these or other features.

A fabric system as described need not use, however, the same materials in the two fabrics. The mouldable fabric may comprise a continuous filament p.v.c. core with polyester surface fibres. The second, upholstery fabric, might use the same surface fibres and be produced in the same way, but using, say, a polyester core.

Claims (24)

1. A mouldable woven fabric having an inelastic extensibility of at least 15%.

2. A fabric according to claim 1, said fabric having an inelastic extensibility of at least 15% in warp and weft directions.

3. A fabric according to claim 1 or claim 2, said fabric comprising yarn which is inelasticaliy extensible by at least 15%.

4. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 3, being inelastically extensible under mechanical stress.

5. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 4, being inelastically extensible under heat.

6. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 4, of which the inelastic extensibility property is generated by shrinkage.

7. A fabric according to claim 6, in which the inelastic extensibility property is generated by heat shrinkage.

8. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 7, in which the inelastic extensibility property is the result of using an undrawn or partially oriented yarn.

9. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 8, in which the fabric is made of yarn having an inelastically extensible core.

10. A fabric according to claim 9, in which the core is a continuous filament core.

11. A fabric according to claim 9 or claim 10, comprising staple surface fibres attached to the core.

12. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 11, of which the yarn is air textured.

13. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 12, made from a heat shrunk yarn.

14. A fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 12, made from a heat shrinkable yarn which is heat shrunk in fabric form.

15. A fabric substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

16. A fabric system comprising a mouldable woven fabric according to any one of claims 1 to 15 and a second fabric which coordinates with said mouldable fabric in appearance at least in respect of colour or texture or pattern or other visual feature, but which is not mouldable.

17. A fabric system according to claim 16, of which the mouldable fabric is suitable for lining a deep drawn panel and the non-mouldable fabric is an upholstery fabric.

18. A motor vehicle having door and/or like deep drawn panels lined with mouldable fabric and seats covered with the said upholstery fabric of a fabric system according to claim 17.

19. A method for making a mouldable woven fabric comprising a treatment which gives said fabric an inelastic extensibility of at least 15%.

20. A method according to claim 19, said method comprising treating yarn prior to weaving.

21. A method according to claim 19, said method comprising treating said fabric after weaving.

22. A method according to any one of claims 19 to 21, said treatment comprising a dry heat treatment.

23. A method according to any one of claims 19 to 22, said treatment comprising a steam treatment.

24. A method for making a mouldable woven fabric substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.