摘要 |
A load floor for a vehicle includes a carpet having a tuft attached to a backing, a plurality of inserts attached to a second side of the backing, a top surface fused to the carpet and encapsulating the inserts, and a bottom surface fused to the encapsulated inserts. The inserts may be varied in material, shape, thickness, and spacing to provide a tunable stiffness. A related method includes forming a parison feeding the parison between mold halves shaped like a load floor, hanging a carpet and a plurality of inserts in the first mold half, clamping the parison by moving the mold halves together to form a mold, and pushing the parison outward, using blown air, such that the parison is adjacent the backing in the first mold forming a top surface and encapsulating the inserts, and adjacent the second mold half forming a bottom surface fused to the parison encapsulating the inserts. |