Artificial leather
Synthetic or artificial leather is a textile made of man-made fibres which is produced to imitate the characteristics of real leather. Needlefelts are used for the base material before coating or as artificial suede.
- Tear-resistant
- Uniform dimensional stability
- Easy to convert
- Shoe upper material
- Funiture upholstery material
- Handbags
- Apparel
Needlefelts used as suede are manufactured using card and crosslapper. To achieve a high uniformity from the outset, very fine man-made fibres (1-3 dtex) are prepared with the aid of a fine opening stage (MultiFeed). The card feeder forms a compact uniform mat of fibre flocks which is then fed to the card. The weight of this mat is adjusted with the help of either a belt weigher or a radioactive device. A tandem card with three or four worker/stripper pairs on the pre-opener and five more on the main cylinder opens the fibre flocks thoroughly. A crosslapper (DiloLayer DLSC) lays the web layers on top of each other with exact matching of the edges and creates the final weight. A very good surface quality for the production of suede products is achieved by needling the needlefelt in up to 10 stages. OD and UD needlelooms are used alternately to create similar top and bottom surfaces. For preneedling special Hyperpunch needlelooms are used. The elliptical needle movement results in less draft of the web in the needling zone and thus conserves a high uniformity and surface quality. This process allows total stitch densities up to 3000/cm² which is important for good bonding of the fibres in the material.