Kenaf/Ramie Composite for Automotive Headliner

An increasing industrial interest is applications of kenaf and ramie fiber nonwovens for making automotive interior trim parts because of their excellent strength and renewability. This paper presents a study on the manufacture and evaluation of the kenaf/ramie nonwoven composite for this automotive end use. Carding, needle-punching, and wet bonding were used to fabricate the composite. End-use performance of the composite, in terms of tensile strength, thermal conductivity, dynamic mechanical property, and bonding structure, was tested using a series of instruments in accordance with the ASTM methods. Bonding performance of the polyvinyl alcohol binder and acrylic copolymer binder was also compared. Research results revealed that the acrylic-copolymer bonded composite was significantly anisotropic in both tensile and bending deformation and the polyvinyl-alcohol bonded composite was significantly anisotropic only in bending deformation. For the acrylic-copolymer bonded composite, increase of padding times helped enhance tensile properties. The acrylic-copolymer bonded composite also exhibited a better performance in dynamic thermal mechanical deformation but indicated insignificant difference of thermal conductivity compared to the polyvinyl-alcohol bonded composite.