Porcher Industries has developed the Dry Fiber range, which offers a new way of processing materials out-of-autoclave (OOA).
Dry Fiber is a range of carbon fiber with a binder interface which is suitable for automated fiber placement (AFP) made preforms for thermoset resin infusion or injection. The material can provide similar component properties to conventional prepreg stacking, enabling the high-speed production of complex shaped parts with improved buy-to-fly ratio, the company says.
The technology uses a one-step-process to impregnate the fiber so can be produced in flat calibrated width for AFP or rounder non-calibrated formats for winding, with a variety of different fiber aerial weights, binder chemistries and binder rates available.
Other features include 100% continuous fiber with no splices that has improved steering in high curvature AFP lay ups, no need for paper or film interleaves which means less waste and risk of fuzzing, improved epoxy resin compatibility and a long shelf life.
Porcher Industries says that it has also added a non-combustible line of Flamline glass fabrics for construction. Flamline fabrics can be used when the highest levels of fire, smoke and toxicity protection are required in textile applications such as acoustical insulation panels, stage curtains, and upholstery interliners for furniture.
The company will be exhibiting the new products at JEC World, along with the Greenlite range of fabrics for sports applications, its range of technical textile composite solutions for the automotive sector from woven fabrics, reinforcements for construction and thermoplastic composite materials.
This story is reprinted from material from Porcher, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
