Sustainable Mono Material for Soft Trim Part

2025-28-0107

To be published on 02/07/2025

Event
Advances in Design, Materials, Manufacturing and Surface Engineering for Mobility (ADMMS’25)
Authors Abstract
Content
Traditionally Soft Trim Parts such as Headliners, Wall Trims require composite material (sandwich of Textile, PU Foam, Glass Fiber, Scrim or Cotton Felt & Phenolic Resin to form Substrate) to meet various requirements such as Stiffness, NVH, and Weight. Since this is sandwich of multiple materials layers, it is not recyclable after end of life. Even C02 emission are very high due multiple processes to prepare the Substrate. A solution to address this sustainability issue is to use Mono Material. Mono Material is made up of PET Fibers with combination of Recycled & Virgin PET Fiber which can be easily recycled after end of life. Mono Material has same level of Stiffness as composite material and improves Thermal Resistance, NVH properties. With Mono Material directly acting as substrate, CO2 emission reduces by approximately 25% due to reduction of number of processes for making substrate as compared to traditional material. Traditional Soft Trim materials are not circular, we cannot recycle them after end of life, and they ultimately go to landfill. On the other hand, Mono Material is easily recyclable after the end of life. Even the scrap generated during manufacturing can be easily recycled. Also, up to 80% of recycled Mono Material can be added with Virgin Material without changing any substrate properties. This also helps to reduce the number of materials at supplier end, Material handling & process cost, storage space which reduces Product Part price. With this publication we intend to share information on how Mono Material is a good alternative solution for Soft Trim parts in automotive industry with respect to sustainability and circularity requirements. We will also be sharing information about manufacturing process, material characteristics and test data for automotive applications.
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Citation
Tripathi, V., Shekhawat, G., Shaji, T., and Venkatan, N., "Sustainable Mono Material for Soft Trim Part," SAE Technical Paper 2025-28-0107, 2025, .
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
To be published on Feb 7, 2025
Product Code
2025-28-0107
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English