Non-woven reinforcement structure

A method of producing a non-structural plastic reinforcement comprising the steps of:

• providing an apparatus for producing a chopped strand mat comprising a cutter, a conveyor moving in a machine direction, and a stitching machine;
• feeding continuous strands of fibers to the cutter;
• cutting the continuous strands of fibers into chopped strands in a manner to provide a uniform layer of randomly distributed chopped strands upon the moving conveyor, the uniform layer of randomly distributed chopped strands having a predetermined, cross-machine dimension;
• advancing the uniform layer of randomly distributed chopped strands upon the moving conveyor in the machine direction;
• confining the chopped strands in a cross-machine direction by laying a confinement layer over and in intimate contact with said chopped strands, the confinement layer having a substantial cross-machine dimension of the order of said predetermined cross-machine dimension, to maintain the placement of the chopped strands int he layer of randomly distributed chopped strands;
• and
• stitching the confinement layer together with the chopped strands to confine the chopped strands in machine direction.