Glass-reinforced woven fabrics

The resin was an epoxy, Permaglass 22 FE from Fothergill and Harvey, the reinforcement was E-glass fibre woven fabric. 

Other reinforcements that may be used in the substrate layers of decorative laminates and throughout the stmcture of industrial laminates are woven fabrics of glass or canvas and nonwoven fabrics of various polymeric monofilaments such as polyester, nylon, or carbon fibers. Woven and nonwoven fabrics tend to be much stronger than paper and have much more uniform strength throughout the x—y plane. They greatly enhance properties of laminates such as impact and tear strength. 

The second main ingredient ia reiaforced plastic is the reinforcement, eg, fibers of glass, carboa, boroa, mineral, cellulose, or polymers. Reinforcements can be configured ia many ways, such as coatiauous or chopped strands, milled fibers, rovings, tows, mats, braids, and woven fabrics. 

In a limited sense, any material suitable for weaving or being made into a woven fabric. In the rubber industry the term is widened to include any material used for the structural reinforcing of a product and thus includes such materials as steel and glass not normally classed as textiles. See Cotton, Nylon, Rayon and Terylene. 

Preservative film materials intended for packing large-size metal ware with sharp edges should of course show elevated resistance to rupture and puncture. With this aim, polymer films are reinforced by glass fibers and kapron by alternating air impermeable and inhibited polymer layers with non-woven fabric [37,38[. Fibrous materials with developed specific surface and porosity can serve as a container for the evaporating Cl [39[. 

The available forms of reinforcement follow terminology and technology borrowed from the textile industry. The basic forms described throughout this chapter and other chapters for glass and other fibers including hybrid mixtures are summarized in this chapter. They are continuous filament, woven fabrics, nonwoven fabrics, knitted fabrics, braids, and tapes. 

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. 

As an example glass RP boats in use are visually almost indistinguishable from traditional, but more expensive, wooden craft. Slightly higher tech is the Raptor Sportjet, an advanced personal watercraft (PWC) produced in North America. Although hand laid in glass fiber molds and room temperature cured, the all-glass prototype incorporates 0°/90° woven fabric and stitched triaxial reinforcement as well as chopped strand mat. Hull cavities are filled with two-part polyurethane foam for buoyancy and noise reduction. 

The fatigue behaviour of the woven fabric shows that this textile structure is sensitive to fatigue loading. This sensitivity is confirmed by testing thermoplastic matrix systems (polyamide 12, PA 12) reinforced with a glass fabric. A strong stiffness reduction, with a pronounced creep deformation was observed under tension-tension fatigue [24]. 

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