Glass fiber fabric/TS polyester

Figure 7.28 Fatigue data of 181 glass fiber fabric/TS polyester (fiberglass), steel, graphite fiber fabric/epoxy, and aluminum...

Table 9.17 Properties of glass fiber fabric/TS polyester RPs after irradiation at elevated temperatures...

A radome (radiation dome) is simply a cover for a microwave antenna used to protect the antenna from the environment (see Fig. 3-102). Such a dome is basically transparent to electromagnetic radiation and structurally strong. The need for being transparent to radiation rules out metals. The earliest radomes (1942) were of a rubber-coated, air-supported fabric, followed later by an RP made of randomly chopped short glass-fiber, mat-reinforced TS polyester. By 1943 the glass-fiber fabric-TS polyester or epoxy was in use that has been the industry standard worldwide ever since [1, 13, 14, 17, 19, 30, 32, 44, 49, 54, 67, 68, 86, 310]. 

The terms reinforced plastics (RP) and composites refer to combinations of plastic materials and reinforcing materials, usually in fiber form (chopped fibers, porous mats, woven fabrics, continuous fibers, etc. see Fig. 7-1). Both thermoset (TS) and thermoplastic (TP) resins are used. When modern RP industry started in 1940, glass-fiber-reinforced unsaturated polyester (TS), low pressure or contact pressure, curing resins were used. Today about 60 percent of the plastics industry uses many different forms of glass fiber-polyester composites. In this chapter the abbreviation RP will be used, and in references to polyester resin it will refer only to TS, as relatively little TP polyester is used in RPs. 

Figure 3-54. An example of tensile creep curves in the direction of maximum fiber orientation, a) A TS polyester RP having 56 percent E-glass, by weight b) glass-fabric/TS polyester RP in 48 percent glass by weight.

The chassis is made from a 1/4 in. sheet of either ABS or TPO vacuum formed into a tub and reinforced with reinforced pultruded glass fiber-TS polyester plastic tubing. The hood and other products are being made from a 20 mm thick sandwich of thermo-formed PPO-alloy skins, glass fabric infused with thermosetting vinyl ester, and a urethane foam core. The bumper and front fascia is thermoformed from a polyolefin elastomer sheet with an UV-resistant cap layer of DuPont s Tediar PVF film. The dash and... 

Radome Also called radiation dome. It is a cover for a microwave antenna used to protect the antenna from the environment on the ground, underwater, and in the air (aircraft nose cone, etc.). The dome is basically transparent to electromagnetic radiation and structurally strong. Different materials have been used such as wood, rubber-coated air-supported fabric, etc. The most popular is the use of glass fiber-TS polyester RPs. The shape of the dome, that is usually spherical, is designed not to interfere with the radiation. 

The workhorse of the RTS industry is TS polyester (also called polyester-TS) with glass fiber. The fiber reinforcement may be in the form of chopped fibers, porous nonwoven mats, woven fabrics, or continuous fibers. The combination of plastics and reinforcements results in versatile materials with unusual characteristics. The reinforcement adds strength and toughness to inherent weather resistance, moldability, and colorability. Thus RTSs are used because of their increased tensile, flexural, torsional, and impact strengths increased modulus of elasticity increased creep resistance reduced coefficient of thermal expansion increased thermal conductivity and, in many cases, lower costs. 

Buses and public transport in general, offer wide opportunities for the use of RPs. Unreinforced plastics (URPS) and reinforced plastics (RPs) have been used in different types of buses. In the world of buses during year 2000 Brunswick Technologies (Brunswick, ME) fabricated the so-called CompoBus. Its design incorporates oriented glass fiber satin woven tri-axial fabrics with TS polyester plastics in its chassis and body. 

Many plastics have short lives when exposed to outdoor conditions. RPs, particularly glass fiber RPs) can be destroyed if not properly fabricated to eliminate seepage of water between fibers and resin. The better materials to weatherability include acrylic, chlorotrifluorethylene, vinylidene fluoride, chlorinated polyether, black linear polyethylene, TS polyester, epoxy, alkyd, and phenolic (Table 9.19). Some of these plastics have successfully performed outdoors for over a half-century. Black materials are best for outdoor service. Some of the styrene copolymers are suitable for certain outdoor uses. 

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