JOURNAL OF

COMPOSITE
Article M AT E R I A L S
Journal of Composite Materials
2017, Vol. 51(8) 1045–1056
! The Author(s) 2016
Effects of needle-punched nonwoven Reprints and permissions:
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structure on the properties of sandwich DOI: 10.1177/0021998316658542
journals.sagepub.com/home/jcm
flexible composites under static loading
and low-velocity impact

Ruosi Yan1, Shih-Yu Huang2, Chen-Hung Huang3,

Chien-Teng Hsieh4, Ching-Wen Lou5 and Jia-Horng Lin2,6,7,8

Abstract
The current study fabricated nylon/high-resilience bonding polyester (HRPET) nonwoven fabric with various needle-
punching parameters and investigated the effect of these variations on the response of high-density flexible foam under
static loading and low-velocity impact. The needle-punching depth and frequency are selected as variations. The HRPET
fiber generates bonding-points when being thermally treated, which provides resilience properties on the sandwich
flexible composites. The results find a substantial relationship between the temperature of thermal treatment and the
absorption of low-velocity impact energy which is mainly because of the increase of fiber connection force. The impact
force is eliminated by 8255 N at most. Needle-punching depth contributes to resistance to static loading and the highest
resistance was 2043 N.

Keywords
Nonwoven fabrics, impact absorption, high-density sandwich flexible foam

resistance during puncture test. Chen et al.8 found that

Introduction
Nonwoven fabric is made from fibers, manufactured
through carding, web-laying and bonded together by
chemical or mechanical treatment. Needle-punching
technique is applied at latter fabricating process using
needle groove structure to reinforce the fiber mesh.
Needle-punching is an environmentally friendly and
low-carbon technique that uses without chemical
reagent. The needle-punching nonwoven fabric has
advantages in interlayer bonding and ease of machining
such that is extensively used in automobile, aerospace,
and civil engineering.1–4 Researches show that needle-
punching nonwoven fabric exhibited excellent mechan-
ical properties. Martı́nez et al.5 presents that the bonding
point of needle-punching nonwoven fabric contributes
to absorption of extension energy. Ridruejoet al.6 also
found that the bonding point enhanced the tolerance
capacity of notches and cracks. Bergadoa et al.7 indi-
cated that needle-punching process endowed nonwoven
fabric with higher stiffness, which reduced the displace-
ment of the puncture-probe and enhanced the puncture
needle-punching density played a dominant role in flexural
properties. Van de Velde and Kiekens9 fabricated nonwo-
ven-reinforced epoxy composites and found that needle-
punching nonwoven fabric contributed to the mechanical
1
Department of Textile Engineering, College of Textile and Garment,
Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang, China
2
Department of Fiber and Composite Materials, Laboratory of Fiber
Application and Manufacturing, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan
3
Department of Aerospace and Systems Engineering, Feng Chia
University, Taichung, Taiwan
4
Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising, Shih Chien
University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
5
Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science, Central
Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taichung, Taiwan
6
School of Textiles, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin, China
7
School of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung City,
Taiwan
8
Department of Fashion Design, Asia University, Taichung City, Taiwan
Corresponding author:
Jia-Horng Lin, Feng Chia University, Taichung 407, Taiwan.
Email: jhlin@fcu.edu.tw
1046
property of the composites. Therefore, needle-punching
technique endows nonwoven fabric with easy manufactur-
ing and high mechanical property. However, needle-
punching fabric-reinforced composites were rarely investi-
gated. The properties of needle-punching fabric and the
corresponding composites need increasing attention.
Staple fiber reinforcing polymer is a wise way to
improve mechanical property with light-weight materials,
which is extensively used in aerospace and automobile
industry.10–13 Fiber-reinforced composites are mostly
composed of thermoplastic polymer and stable fibers.
Polymer chips blend with staple fibers to fabricate com-
posites panel by injection molding to enhance the impact
and compressive resistance properties. Fiber fracture can
absorb more energy and eliminate cracking.14–16and
then, the matrix exhibited high compressive strength
and stiffness.17–19 At present, researchers mostly investi-
gate the impact resistance of fiber-reinforced rigid com-
posites and the researches on fiber-reinforced flexible
composites are very rare.
Previous researches show that staple fiber reinforce-
ment can enhance the impact energy absorption and the
needle-punching technique improves the mechanical
property of nonwoven fabric without complicated pro-
cess. This study designed needle-punched nylon/
HRPET staple fiber nonwoven fabric-reinforced flex-
ible polyurethane (PU) foam to make flexible compos-
ites. The reason for applying flexible PU foam in this
study is that flexible composites were considered to
exhibit high elongation and resilience which affected
the tensile and tear properties in relative references.20–23
The research presented that the properties ensured the
flexible composites to potentially absorb impact energy.
Effect of variables of needle punching process on the
impact resistant property of composites and the relation-
ship between structure and impact resistant property will
be investigated in this research. Interlayer cohesion plays
an important role in impact energy transmission.24,25
The responses to static loading and low-velocity
impact of nonwoven laminates-reinforced sandwich flex-
ible composites were investigated. The effects of needle-
punching depth and frequency on the properties of sand-
wich flexible composites were explored because the two
factors directly determined the degree of fiber entangle-
ment and interlayer binding. The influence of different
thermal-treating conditions of HRPET with low-melting
Table 1. Specification of staple fibers.
Fiber Fiber fineness Length Elongation
type (Denier) (mm) (%)
Nylon 6 64 24.7
HRPET 4 51 60
Journal of Composite Materials 51(8)
point component on the impact resistance properties was
given. Nylon fiber is considered to be an impact-resistant
material26–29 but the elasticity modulus is relatively
lower than high-performance fibers.30,31 Previous
researchers found that elastic materials exhibited high
energy capacity.32,33 Therefore, flexible composites
used for load-buffering is manufactured through the
needle-punching and laminating.
Experimental
Materials and fabrication
The sandwich flexible composites were manufactured in
sandwich structure which was composed of center-ply
of high-density flexible PU foam and cover-ply of
nylon/HRPET nonwoven laminates. High-density flex-
ible PU foam was supplied from Kuang Lung Shing
Corporation, Taiwan. Nylon staple fiber was purchased
from Formosa Chemicals & Fiber Corporation, Taiwan.
HRPET staple fiber is provided by Far Eastern New
Century Corporation, Taiwan. The specifications of
the staple fibers are shown in Table 1. DSC analysis of
nylon and HRPET fibers are illustrated in Figures 1
and 2. Flexible foam was made of two-component PU.
Agent A is composed of polyols and agent B is isocyan-
ate. The final PU foam has a density of 333  7.56 kg/m3
and the cell has open structure.
The sandwich flexible composites were composed
of a flexible foam core and double nonwoven cover-
plies. Nylon and HRPET staple fibers are prepared in
different weight blending ratio to made single-layer
nonwoven fabric by needle-punching. The laminated
nonwoven fabric was laminated through three layers
of nonwoven fabric and manufactured with various
needle-punching depths of 1, 3, and 5 mm and vari-
ous punching frequencies of 100, 200, and 300 needles/min.
Needle-punching depth is defined as the length between
the needle tip and the lower surface of the fiber mesh
(Figure 3(a)). Needle-punching frequency indicates the
number of punching of the needle plate per unit time
(Figure 3(b)). Then, the laminated nonwoven fabrics
are thermal treated at different temperature for various
durations, which were 170 C 15 min, 170 C 30 min,
180 C 15 min, and 180 C 30 min, to form the final non-
woven laminates. The thermal-treating temperature
Tenacity Melting
(g/d) Component point ( C)
10 Single component 222
3 Bi-component Sheath: 170–180
Core: 250
Yan et al. 1047

Figure 1. DSC analysis of Nylon staple fiber.

Figure 2. DSC analysis of HRPET staple fiber for the components of (a) sheath and (b) core.

Figure 3. Schematic of needle-punching (a) depth, and (b) frequency.

1048 Journal of Composite Materials 51(8)

Table 2. Specifications of sandwich flexible composites.

Thickness of
Fiber blending the sandwich
Laminating ratio of Density of Thickness flexible Laminating
Sample structure cover-ply flexible foam of flexible composites structure of
code of cover-ply (nylon: HRPET) (kg/m3) foam (mm) (mm) composites

30N/70H A nylon nonwo- 3:7 333  7.56 20 20.76  0.41 Double nonwo-
40N/60H ven layer 4:6 333  7.56 20 20.04  0.23 ven laminates
50N/50H sandwiched 5:5 333  7.56 20 20.46  0.34 cover-plies
with double with flexible
HRPET layers center-ply

Figure 4. Schematic diagrams of testing instruments of (a) static loading and (b) low-velocity impact.

Figure 5. Effect of needle-punching depth on bursting strength of sandwich flexible composites.

was set between the melting points between sheath and
core of HRPET fiber to investigate the effect of sheath
melting area on the impact property. Double layers
of nonwoven laminates were laid at the top and
bottom of the metal mold. Agent A (polyol) and
Agent B (isocyanate) were mixed up at a weight ratio
of 8:2 and stirred for 20 s to produce viscous mixture.
The deployed viscous polymer mixture was infused
into the mold. The polyol and isocyanate blended to
generate foam reaction and cross-linking reaction.
Yan et al. 1049

Double-laminated nonwoven layers were penetrated by
the viscous mixture and fibers and mixture stuck together
by own viscosity which was 2200 cps. The metal mold was
sealed and stood at constant temperature and humidity
system (25 C, 65% relative humidity). Final sandwich
flexible composites were obtained after curing for 2 h.
The specification of the sandwich flexible composites
with various parameters is tabulated in Table 2.
Testing
The response to static loading and low-velocity impact of
sandwich flexible composites were investigated in this
study. Bursting strength test was applied to measure
Table 3. Effect of needle-punching depth on impact resistance
of sandwich flexible composites.
the response to static loading. The test was carried out
by Instron 5566 Universal Testing Machine (UTM)
(Instron, USA) according to ASTM D3787. The
sample was trimmed to a square with a dimension of
150 mm  150 mm. The bursting probe moved to pene-
trate the sample in overhead direction at a velocity of
100  10 mm/min until the sample was totally perforated.
The bursting system was illustrated in Figure 4(a). Low-
velocity impact test was conducted by drop-weight
impact instrument which was supplied by Kuang Neng
Factory Co., Ltd., Taiwan. The drop-weight impactor
fell freely from the fixed-height of 6.5 cm to ensure a
constant initial impact force of 9.0 kN. The sample
was in a dimension of 100 mm  100 mm  20 mm. The
residual force was measured to evaluate the cushioning
capacity of the sandwich flexible composites. The drop-
weight impact instrument was illustrated in Figure 4(b).

Residual force (N)

Results and discussion
Needle-punching Effect of the needle-punching depth of the nonwoven
Depth (mm) 30N/70H 40N/60H 50N/50H
laminates on the impact resistance of sandwich
1 1127.3  6.5 1082.8  6.3 1082.9  6.0 flexible composites
3 1044.0  7.0 1038.4  6.7 1066.2  6.8
Nonwoven laminates were manufactured at constant
5 1177.3  6.0 1116.2  6.6 1182.8  6.8
needle-punching frequency of 200 stroke/min and

Figure 6. Stereomicroscope image of fiber pegs of nonwoven laminates with various needle-punching depths of (a) 1, (b) 3, and
(c) 5 mm (12, 600 dpi, fiber peg is marked by black dotted line).
1050
thermal treated at 170 C for 15 min but with various
needle-punching depths for 1, 3, and 5 mm. The
result shows that the sandwich flexible composites with
the needle-punching depth of 1 mm exhibited the
highest bursting strength of 1884 N as shown in
Figure 5. In terms of low-velocity impact, the sandwich
flexible composites with the needle-punching depth of
3 mm exhibited the highest residual force range from
1044 to 1066 N, which indicated that the sample elimi-
nated the most impact force. The residual force of sand-
wich flexible composites with various needle-punching
depths is shown in Table 3.
The main reason for the result of bursting test was
that the fiber pegs which exhibited in thickness direction
of nonwoven laminates exhibited different lengths and
needle-punching depth directly influenced the peg length.
Fiber pegs are made of entangled fibers which are gen-
erated by numeral puncture of needles. The plate needles
exhibited groove structure, which rub the fibers to move
up and down and form entanglement with the recipro-
cating motion of the plate. When the needle-punching
depth was small, the fibers entangled to fabricated short
pegs as shown in Figure 6. Nylon fiber had less punching
Figure 7. Load–displacement curves in bursting test of sandwich flexible composites of (a) 30N/70H, (b) 40N/60H, and (c) 50N/50H
with various needle-punching depths.
Journal of Composite Materials 51(8)
damage during the needle-punching process because of
its high puncture resistance and tenacity. The bursting
strength was enhanced with the addition of nylon fiber
when the probe contacts the middle layer. A similar phe-
nomenon was also proposed by Martı́nez et al.5 that the
degree of freedom of fiber slippage increased the energy
consumption. Figure 7 depicted that load–displacement
curves in bursting test and it is evident that with the
increase in the nylon weight ratio of the middle layer
nonwoven fabric, the peak-load appeared at larger dis-
placement and the area became wide. Then, the highest
bursting energy is 33.66 J (Table 4). This phenomenon
demonstrated that fibers had large slippage during the
bursting process and the sample had heavier deform-
ation. Although low HRPET ratio and high nylon
fiber ratio provided higher deformation degree, the
bursting-end deformed the foam layer with large area
because of the high resilience and elongation properties.
Bursting energy dissipated, and the rising curve in the
load–displacement figure expanded; 50N/50H sample
with a needle-punching depth of 1 mm had short fiber
pegs and low-treated temperature which generated delam-
ination of nonwoven laminates.
Yan et al. 1051

The difference between the testing results of low-velo-
city impact and bursting is generated by the interlayer
cohesion which is caused by the instant impact. The inter-
layer cohesion of the sample with 1 mm depth exhibited
lower value because the fiber pegs performed low support-
ing force. Partial delamination appeared when the sample
was impacted by the drop-weight impactor. Relative
research indicated that delamination resulted in fiber
breakage and low energy absorption.34,35 The sample
with 3 mm needle-punching depth exhibited higher cush-
ioning capacity than the sample with 5 mm depth. The
main reason was that fiber pegs of 5 mm depth were
longer and the cohesion between fiber pegs and the
fibers in the adjacent nonwoven layer was stronger.
Then, laminated structure was more compact and the
fibers in laminates tended to break and elongation to
have less deformation, instead of slippage. Fiber elong-
ation and breakage consumed the impact energy and less
energy was absorbed by the foam area. PU foam exhibited
high energy storage ability in another research because the
foam cells absorbed the energy by deformation.20
Effect of needle-punching frequency of nonwoven
laminates on sandwich flexible composites
Figure 8 shows that the bursting strength was the
highest when the needle-punching frequency was 100
needles/min and decreased with the needle-punching
frequency increasing to 300 needles/min. In terms of
low-velocity impact (Table 5), the cushioning capacity
showed the highest value when the needle-punching fre-
quency is 200 needles/min.
The main reason was that the friction between
fiber pegs and the bursting probe. Fiber pegs number
became lower when needle-punching frequency tended
to decrease. Then, the number of fiber pegs in unit area

Table 4. Bursting energy of sandwich flexible composites with Table 5. Residual force of sandwich flexible composites with
various needle-punching depths. various needle-punching frequencies.

Bursting energy (J) Needle-punching Residual force (N)

Needling frequency
depth(mm) 30N/70H 40N/60H 50N/50H (needles/min) 30N/70H 40N/60H 50N/50H

1 21.62 17.16 33.66 100 1066.2  7.2 1110.7  7.4 1099.5  5.5
3 18.78 15.24 24.26 200 1044.0  7.0 1038.4  6.7 1066.2  6.8
5 17.94 13.21 22.42 300 1088.4  7.0 1055.1  7.6 1116.2  6.6

Figure 8. Bursting strength of sandwich flexible composites with various needle-punching frequencies.
1052 Journal of Composite Materials 51(8)

Figure 9. Load–displacement curve in bursting test of sandwich flexible composites of (a) 30N/70H, (b) 40N/60H, and (c) 50N/50H
with various needle-punching frequencies.

area of bonding sheet, which restricted the bending

Table 6. Bursting strength of sandwich flexible composites at and elongation of the composites. Then, the energy
various needle-punching frequencies. failed to be dissipated to the whole area of the sample.
The bursting probe continues to squeeze the foam layer
Needle-punching Bursting energy (J)
frequency in the thickness direction and the resilient foam was
(needles/min) 30N/70H 40N/60H 50N/50H compacted to absorb the compressive energy and sup-
port the bursting probe. The foam cell ruptured when it
100 19.14 21.31 19.40 reached the damage initiation threshold, and the burst-
200 18.78 15.24 24.26 ing strength was decreased.
300 19.65 18.86 22.25 Sandwich flexible composites with the needle-punch-
ing frequency at 200 needles/min exhibited the best
interlayer cohesion. With the increase of nylon ratio,
the peak-load was extended because the interlayer cohe-
was reduced and the friction between fibers and probe sion was improved and the entire structure was more
was decreased. Delamination was also observed because stable to support the loading together. And then, the
the interlayer cohesion was decreased with the friction bursting strength increased. Table 6 shows that the sand-
decreasing. On the other hand, the displacement was wich flexible composites with 50N/50H blending ratio
enhanced and the bursting strength was improved. showed the highest bursting energy of 24.26 J.
Wide peak-load area is observed in Figure 9. It is appar- The sandwich flexible composites with a needle-
ent that the bursting strength of the sample with needle- punching frequency of 200 needles/min show the high-
punching frequency of 300 needles/min exhibited the est capacity to eliminate the impact force because the
lowest value. The reason was that laminates density number of fiber pegs is moderate without slash struc-
was enhanced with increasing frequency and the stiffness ture or heavy fiber damage. Among sandwich flexible
was consequently increased. Thermal treatment gener- composites with various fiber blending ratio, 30N/70H
ated numerous thermal-bonding points to form large sample exhibited the highest cushioning capacity.
Yan et al. 1053

Figure 10. Effect of thermal-treating temperature on the bursting strength of the sandwich flexible composites.

With the increase in temperature, low-melting com-

Table 7. Residual force of sandwich flexible composites at ponent (sheath) of HRPET staple fiber was melt more
various thermal-treating temperature. completely. The binding area is enlarged and the inter-
layer cohesion was enhanced. Therefore, the whole
Residual force (N)
Thermal-treating components in the composites sustained the load.
temperature 30N/70H 40N/60H 50N/50H Nylon is confirmed to have impact resistance prop-
erty.27,28 Then, the components including nylon,
170–15 min 1044.0  7.0 1038.4  6.7 1066.2  6.8
HRPET, and flexible foam enhanced the impact resist-
170–30 min 891.3  7.7 862.1  6.4 841.3  7.0 ance. As the foam is flexible, cracking is rarely observed
180–15 min 791.3  6.9 824.6  6.8 849.6  6.3 and deformation is the main mechanism to absorb
180–30 min 774.69  6.7 832.9  6.5 745.5  5.5 impact energy. Thermal-bonding points increased the
strength of the materials and the network enhanced
the dissipation of impact energy. From the result, it is
The main reason was that the most thermal-bonding apparent that 50N/50H sample had the highest syner-
points were fractured and foam cell collapsed to gistic effect which eliminated the impact force based on
absorb impact energy. both dissipation of HEPET network and energy
absorption of nylon breakage effectively.
Effect of thermal treatment of nonwoven Figure 11 depicts the load–displacement curve of
bursting test. The slope is larger when the temperature
laminates on the sandwich flexible composites increases because the laminates are stiffer and the elas-
The HRPET had sheath–core structure which gener- tic modulus increased. The 30N/70H sample resisted
ated thermal-bonding points between fibers to bind the penetration mainly based on the thermal-bonding
the entire laminates. The material of fiber core is also points while 50N/50H sample depended on the nylon
resilient. Therefore, the mechanical property is influ- strength. The reason was that nonwoven laminates with
enced directly by thermal treatment. In this section, three layers of pure nylon exhibited the bursting
the thermal-treating temperature was set at 170 and strength of 146 N, whereas the sample with three
180 C and the treating duration is set at 15 and layers of pure HRPET exhibited 759 N. The nylon
30 min to investigate the influence of thermal treatment laminates had higher bursting strength and the
on the property of the sandwich flexible composites. HRPET laminates contributed to the interlayer bind-
Figure 10 shows that the highest bursting strength is ing. The high interlayer binding force improves the uni-
1640 N under various thermal-treating conditions. form stress distribution of the foam layer and the
Table 7 shows that the lowest residual force is 745 N. bursting strength was enhanced. Furthermore, the
1054 Journal of Composite Materials 51(8)

Figure 11. Load–displacement curve in bursting test of sandwich flexible composites of (a) 30N/70H, (b) 40N/60H, and (c) 50N/
50H at various thermal-treating temperature.

responses to static loading and low-velocity impact.

Table 8. Bursting strength of sandwich flexible composites at The results show that needle-punching depth effected
various thermal-treating temperature. the interlayer cohesion, which influenced the transfer
of the impact force. The number of fiber pegs in thick-
Bursting energy (J)
Thermal-treating ness direction of the composites, which depended on
temperature 30N/70H 40N/60H 50N/50H needle-punching frequency, effected the dissipation of
impact energy. Temperature of thermal treatment
170–15 min 18.78 15.24 24.26
influenced the stiffness of the nonwoven laminates.
180–30 min 13.93 20.37 20.17 The testing data showed that the cushioning capacity
of the initial impact force increased with the increase
in stiffness of the nonwoven laminates. The optimal
elongations of nylon and HRPET staple fibers are manufacturing parameters of sandwich flexible com-
24.7% and 60%, respectively. The displacement at the posites for cushioning were needle-punching depth of
peak-load extended with the increase in fiber ratio of 3 mm, needle-punching frequency of 200 needles/min,
HRPET staple fiber. Nylon had higher tenacity than thermal-treating temperature at 180 C, thermal-treating
HRPET. The peak-load with the most nylon was the duration of 15 min, and fiber blending ratio of
highest and the displacement at the peak-load is the 40 N/60 H. The load–displacement curve shows that
lowest. Table 8 shows that the highest energy to burst more ratio of HRPET effected the peak-load exhibiting
the sandwich flexible composites is 24.26 J. at larger displacement.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Conclusion
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
This study investigated the nonwoven laminates- respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
reinforced flexible foam composites with their article.
Yan et al.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: The authors would especially like to thank Ministry of
Science and Technology of Taiwan, for financially sup-
porting this research under Contract MOST 104-2622-E-
035-023-CC2.
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