Leading car manufacturers including Ford, General Motors, Mitsubishi and Toyota are said to be now taking advantage of the tremendous properties of vertically lapped nonwoven fabrics - and the benefits are not just confined to the automotive sector.

At this week's ITMA show in Barcelona, Spain, from September 22-29, Australian company V-Lap will be demonstrating the capabilities of its highly-successful technology for the production of vertically-lapped products on a fully-operational pilot line.

"The key advantage of the products made with our technology over traditional high loft nonwovens is the true vertical orientation of the fibres," explains managing director Jason Cooper.

"This provides a more uniform product and greater resilience and recovery from compression for specific applications. And most importantly, it allows for reduced weight at a comparable thickness and or sound acoustic rating."

Car manufacturers are looking to alternative energies and smaller cars for reduced fuel usage, but shedding the weight of components while at achieving the same performance level can be just as critical, Mr Cooper adds.

"V-Lap material has been successfully tested and approved by several of the biggest car manufacturers in the world and this growth is gaining momentum. The ability to fine tune the products makes them ideal for applications such as door insulators, headliner pads and base materials, under-carpet insulators and hood and truck liners."

According to V-Lap, its nonwovens can be equally effective solutions in other industrial areas such as filtration, building and construction and the furniture markets.

The company claims that in filtration, the unique structure of vertically orientated webs improves both coarse particle holding on the surface and depth holding of the finer particles, resulting in a filter with a very low pressure drop and excellent dust holding capacity.

In mattress construction, meanwhile, they can be used with strong scrims for spring pocket insulator materials, and the same machine can manufacture replacement mattress topping materials which are said to be much more foam-like than conventional cross lapped polyesters.

V-Lap says the improved compression and recovery does not compromise the soft feel of the material, while the ability to provide improved bulk without weight - sometimes by as much as 20% - provides for much more air circulation and a ‘cooler' feel than standard polyester separators.

The V-Lap vertical lapping system has been designed to ensure modest capital costs and low energy consumption and it can accommodate virtually any manmade or natural fibre.

The line which will be running at ITMA 2012 will consist of a chute feed tower with acompact nonwoven card, an incline conveyor and a 500mm wide vertical lapping unit with an electric thermobond oven.

"Come and see the technology in action and the resulting products for yourself in Barcelona," Mr Cooper suggests. "There are many as-yet unexplored applications and markets to which V-Lap materials may be the answer."