BURNESIDE – UK company Technical Fibre Products (TFP) is showcasing materials from its Optiveil, Optimat and Tecnofire ranges at this week’s CAMX exhibition taking place in Anaheim, California (October 17-20).
TFP’s Optiveil and Optimat materials are multi-functional and designed to overcome a number of challenges in composites using a single material. Their highly porous structures enable enhanced resin uptake and transportation, aiding fabrication and lowering resin usage, while the consistent, even fibre distribution of the veils enables a high quality, resin rich surface finish, reducing print though and processing. The veils are lightweight and available in a wide range of fibre types to confer additional functionality. Typical examples are based on:
- Metal coated carbon fibres which impart EMI shielding for battery and electronics enclosures, as well as conductivity for resistive heating applications.
- Aramid fibres to improve surface abrasion resistance for friction substrates in automotive, sporting goods and roll covers.
- Glass and carbon fibres which provide a corrosion resistant surface for industrial applications as well as managing static dissipation.
- Dielectric fibre veils which can be incorporated as an electrically isolating layer to prevent the electrochemical reaction that causes galvanic corrosion.
In addition to surfacing applications, TFP’s veils can also increase the longevity of the composite – interleaving thermoplastic veils between reinforcement layers can improve the mode-I and mode-II interlaminar fracture toughness of a structure by up to 400%.
The Tecnofire range of lightweight intumescent fire protection materials will also be on display at CAMX. These materials enable composites to pass stringent reaction to fire and fire resistance test standards and have been used extensively in applications such as infrastructure, construction, mass transport and aerospace. They provide built in composite fire protection without compromising the integrity of the structure and have been used effectively to pass key reaction to fire standards including ASTM E662, E162 and the EN45545-2 rail sector standard.
Tecnofire is incorporated directly into a composite structure using traditional fabrication methods, protecting the structure from fire while reducing smoke and heat release. It can also be combined with FR resins and integrates well into FR laminate composite assemblies.
TFP also specialises in developing or adapting materials to meet customer specific performance, processing and aesthetic requirements. This is enabled by extensive product development capabilities, ranging from proof of concept lab work to trials, full scale manufacture and converting via lamination and nanocoating.