JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #78 - January/February 2013 - 22

overview 2012
The Indian company
Kemrock, which already has
a small production facility,
should start to draw large tow
fibres in 2014.
Australia is also planning to
set up a research facility for
carbon fibre innovation on the
Deakin University’s Geelong
Campus at Waurn Ponds.
The carbon fibre pilot plant
will be part of an Australian
Future Fibres Research and
Innovation Centre (AFFRIC).
This Centre is the result of
collaboration between Deakin
University, CSIRO (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
i.e. Australia’s national science
agency) and the Victorian
Centre for Advanced Materials
Manufacturing (VCAMM).
Within the 7th European
Framework Programme, the
EUCARBON project (for
European Space Qualified
Carbon Fibres and Pre-impregnated Based Materials) is
a collaborative project aimed
at developing carbon fibres in

Europe for use in high demanding applications like satellite
components. The consortium
includes the Portuguese
research and technology organization INEGI (Instituto de
Engenharia Macânica e Gestão
Industrial), the Acrylic Fiber
Producer Fisipe, the satellite
manufacturer Astrium via
EADS Casa Espacio (Spain)
and the composites testing
laboratory CTL Tástáil Teo
(Ireland). Fisipe has already
its own carbon fibre pilot line.
More will be said about this
project in our next issue.
We can also mention the
Brazilian project to produce
PAN-based fibres bringing
together the Navy’s Technological Center in Sao Paulo
(CTMSP), the University
of Campinas (UNICAMP),
the University of São Paulo
(USP), the RADICIFIBRAS
Company and the Brazilian FINEP agency. Harper recently
awarded a contract for a complete research scale processing
line but did not mention the

Aramid and basalt:
still challenger fibres
The volume of aramid and basalt fibre used in
composite materials is still low compared to that
for carbon and especially for glass fibre, and yet
these fibres have many advantages. Here is an
update on properties, uses and production
capacities for these two types of fibre.

l

t has been chosen to
make a review of these
two kinds of fibres only
due to their similar volume
used in composites, not for
their properties.

Aramid fibre
Properties
Aramid fibres exhibit
many interesting properties for composites: high

name of its customer. Could it
have been for this project?
Dow Chemical recently
created a Joint Venture with
the Turkish company AKSA
which already produces
carbon fibre. This JV could
change AKSA’s production
schedule.
Companies specialized in
equipment for carbon fibre
production such as Despatch,
Harper International, Eisenmann, KYK or Litzer should
be kept very busy given the
numerous projects underway.
PAN supply is obviously
critical to the manufacture
of carbon fibre. Great efforts
have been made to build new
facilities. Each player must
secure supply. Toray has plans
to build a PAN plant in France
and SGL just bought most of
the shares in Fisipe, a Portuguese Company, to diversify
future supply of Precursor.

Conclusion
Despite economic uncertainties the carbon fibre
tensile modulus (120-130
GPa), high tensile strength
(2.8-3 GPa), low density
(d=1.45), good dimensional stability (no thermal
expansion), good fatigue
resistance, excellent damage
tolerance (ductility),
energy absorption, vibration and sound damping,
hydrocarbon resistance and
dielectric properties (nonconductive). But they also
have intrinsic drawbacks,
such as poor compression
strength, micro-cracking
due to their high thermal
expansion coefficient in
the width direction, and
high moisture regain (up to
4%). Additionally, they are

22 jec composites magazine / No78 January - February 2013

market is clearly optimistic.
We should witness a great
expansion in the use of this
material in the near future.
There is great potential for
improvement to carbon
fibres when you compare
their theoretical characteristics with the properties of
currently produced fibres.
Furthermore, all manufacturers are striving to increase
their return on investment
by producing faster and
cheaper.
PAN is for the moment
the main precursor and
will remain so until another cheaper precursor
(at least in terms of the
overall carbon fiber production cost) appears on
an industrial scale. Several
laboratories such as the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory
in the USA are working on
this. But for the time being,
investments in PAN precursor are essential to meet the
demand. n
particularly difficult to cut
or machine once the composite is produced. More
information on their composition and manufacturing
is available in JEC Composites Magazine No.60.
Use as composite
reinforcement
For structural composite
applications, the use of
aramid fibre is still limited
to niche markets that can
make the most of their properties, due to their price
and some of their disadvantages.
However, they are used
in many other application
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #78 - January/February 2013

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