User:PetervanHolland

Draft

The car mat is a mat made of textile or rubber to protect a car's interior. Car mats are also used as a styling accessory to enhance a cars' interior.

Textile Car Mats
Textile car mats are manufactured from carpet which is specially developed for use in automotive interiors. The most commonly used production processes for the manufacture of automotive carpet are: tufting and needle punch. For classic car interiors, woven carpet is also being utilised.

Top surface material used in the production of car mats are polypropylene, polyamide and polyester fibres.

Tufted automotive carpet typically consists of a number of layers:


 * Pile
 * Carrier
 * Primary Backing
 * Latex
 * Precoat
 * Secondary Backing (Actionback, felt or Hessian)
 * Anti-slip Backing

Needlefelt automotive carpet typically consists of the following layers:


 * Pile
 * Carrier
 * Primary Backing
 * Latex
 * Anti-slip Backing

Production Process
Automotive carpet is produced by carpet mills in 4 meter wide rolls. These rolls are then split to 2 meter wide rolls which are subsequently cut to shape. The cutting operation is carried out by a press with a cutting knife or by a CNC cutting machine, using cutting devices like a laser, a drag knife or a water jet.

To stop the carpet from fraying and to finish them off, a cloth or PVC tape is then stitched around the edge or the edge is overlocked with yarn. This can be done in a contrasting colour or colour matched.

As the driver mat usually wears out quickest under the pedals, a heel pad can then be added. This is a piece of carpet, rubber, or PVC which is either stitched on or welded on with a high frequency welding machine. Some manufacturers also offer metal heelpads which are then riveted onto the mats.

To minimize the risk of the mats sliding in the footwell and interfering with the normal use of the pedals, the shape of the mats follows the contours of the footwells closely. To keep the mats in place, the carpet is also made with an anti slip backing and most car mats are provided with a fixing system which can be used to fixate the mat to the floor of the car.

Rubber Car Mats
Rubber car mats are being produced from a variety of elastomers like SBR (Styrene Butadiene Rubber), EPDM rubber (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (M-class) rubber), NR (Natural Rubber) or Thermoplastic Elastomers like TPE-S, TPE-O, mixed with additives