Needle punched non woven fabric is created by carding loose fibers into a felt-like batting that is then needle punched. Needle punched fabrics are often used in carpeting, acoustic insulation, filtration and soil stabilization applications.

Needled nonwoven fabrics are felt-like and flexible, characterized by a fibrous network with distinctive pores that make them suitable for filtration and drainage. Needle punching creates a strong bond within the fabrics and allows them to be produced at much lower costs compared to woven or knitted fabric.

In needle-punched fabrics, fibres are mechanically interlocked and bonded together with the help of barbed needles repeatedly penetrated through the fibrous web. These mechanically oriented fibres are reorientated and migrated from the surface of the web towards the interior of the fabric, forming periodic regions in their structural architecture (Russell 2007; Smith 2000).

The tensile properties of needle-punched fabrics were also quantitatively evaluated using X-ray computed tomography (XCT) imaging analysis. This analysis determined the relationship between needle penetration depth, needling density, and tensile properties, and structural parameters such as fiber-volume fraction and three-dimensional fiber orientation.

ND-oriented fibres were produced by needle punching and tended to increase with penetration depth and needling density, but were not observed at all penetration depths. For penetration depths of 12.7-19.0 mm, the probability of ND-oriented fibres was significantly increased compared with that of the web. This increase can be attributed to the compression of the needle-punched fabric, which leads to the formation of a pillar structure with restrained bridging fibres and a stitch structure connecting them.