Seat upholstery plays an important role in defining overall interior quality and aesthetics of automobiles. Over a period of time, different weather conditions and varied usage pattern affects the performance of seat upholstery material and deteriorates the interior aesthetics. With this, the major challenge for an OEM is to devise upholstery which can retain the performance over the life of the vehicle with a balance of cost and weight.
In automotive applications, different materials are used for seating upholstery e.g. PVC, woven fabric, knit fabric, spacer fabric, leather. This paper will focus mainly on analyzing the ageing effect on automotive fabrics having woven construction. This paper analyses and evolves the correlation of the different woven fabrics used in automotive seat upholstery and effect of ageing due to usage condition (durability) and climatic conditions.