Glass fiber has many advantages such as high strength and light weight, corrosion resistance, high temperature resistance, good electrical insulation performance, etc. It is one of the commonly used raw materials for composite materials. At the same time, China is also the world’s largest producer of glass fiber.
1. What is fiberglass?
Glass fiber is an inorganic non-metallic material with excellent performance, is a natural mineral with silica as the main raw material, add specific metal oxide mineral raw materials, mixed uniformly, molten at high temperatures, molten glass liquid flow through the funnel outflow, the role of high-speed pull gravitational force is drawn and rapidly cooled and cured into a very fine continuous fiber.
Glass fiber monofilament diameter from a few microns to more than twenty microns, equivalent to a hair of 1/20-1/5, each bundle of fibers are composed of hundreds or even thousands of monofilaments.
Glass fiber basic properties：The appearance of a smooth cylindrical surface, the cross-section is a complete circle, round cross-section to withstand the load capacity; gas and liquid through the resistance is small, but the surface is smooth so that the holding force of the fiber is small, not conducive to the combination with the resin; density is generally in 2.50-2.70 g/cm3, depending mainly on the glass composition; tensile strength than other natural fibers, synthetic fibers to be high; brittle materials, the elongation at break is very small The water resistance and acid resistance are good, while the alkali resistance is poor.
2.Glass fiber classification
It can be divided into continuous glass fiber, short glass fiber (fixed length glass fiber) and long glass fiber (LFT) from the length classification.
From the alkali metal content can be divided into alkali-free, low, medium and high, usually modified with alkali-free, that is, E glass fiber, domestic modification is generally used E glass fiber.
3.What can glass fiber be used for
Glass fiber has high tensile strength, high elasticity, non-combustibility, chemical resistance, low water absorption, good processing performance and other excellent characteristics, usually as a composite material in the reinforcing material, electrical insulation materials and insulation materials, circuit substrate, etc., widely used in various fields.
Foreign glass fiber is basically divided into four categories according to product usage: reinforcing materials for thermosetting plastics, glass fiber reinforcing materials for thermoplastics, cement gypsum reinforcing materials, and glass fiber textile materials, of which reinforcing materials account for 70-75% and glass fiber textile materials account for 25-30%. From the downstream demand, infrastructure accounts for about 38% (including pipeline, desalination, house warming and waterproofing, water conservancy, etc.), transportation accounts for about 27-28% (yacht, automobile, high-speed rail, etc.) and electronics accounts for about 17%.
To sum up, the application areas of glass fiber are roughly transportation, construction materials, electrical industry, mechanical industry, petrochemical industry, leisure and culture, and national defense technology.
Post time: Feb-27-2023