Abstract
An air intake duct is an automotive part for transferring outside air to the internal combustion engine where the air and fuel are mixed and consumed. While this part has been primarily made of engineering plastics, many manufacturers are attempting to apply textile nonwovens due to their superior sound absorbing performance and lightweight characteristics. In this paper, we studied the manufacturing process of needle punched nonwoven fabric and analyzed various properties in order to investigate the applicability of textile nonwoven as a material for automobile air intake ducts. The nonwoven web was prepared by opening, mixing and carding PET staple fibers and binder fibers. The web was physically bonded by the needle punching process. In addition, we applied heated air through the nonwoven web to improve the mechanical properties of the needle punched nonwoven fabrics by the thermal bonding of interlocking constituent fibers. The results of the tensile test of the nonwoven demonstrated that the hot air treatment to the needle punched nonwoven decreased the elongation of nonwoven, which significantly affects the processability of the air duct production process. Also, the porous structure of the nonwoven improved the sound absorbtion property compared to normal PP plastic. Therefore, the air intake duct made of PET needle punched nonwoven could contribute to decreasing the noise level inside automobiles.