Fiberglass Basics: A Complete Guide to Helping You Understand Fiberglass

April 20,2022

Glass fiber is an inorganic non-metal fiber material with many characteristics such as high tensile strength, high elastic coefficient, large impact energy absorption, low water absorption, good processability, and low price, and is widely used in circuit substrates and other fields. There are many types of glass fiber materials. According to the composition of glass raw materials, it can be divided into three types: alkali-free, medium-alkali and high-alkali. According to the diameter of the monofilament, it can be divided into crude fiber, primary fiber, intermediate fiber and advanced fiber. Let's take a look at what material fiberglass is

What material is glass fiber

Glass fiber is an inorganic non-metallic material with excellent performance. It is made of pyrophyllite, quartz sand, limestone, dolomite, borosite and borosite as raw materials. It is often used as reinforcing material, electrical insulating material and thermal insulation material in composite materials.

Second, what are the characteristics of glass fiber materials

Compared with other organic fiber materials, glass fiber materials have the following characteristics:

1. High tensile strength and small elongation (3%).

2. High elastic coefficient and good rigidity.

3. The amount of elongation within the elastic limit is large and the tensile strength is high, so the absorption of impact energy is large.

4. It is inorganic fiber, which is non-flammable and has good chemical resistance.

5. Low water absorption.

6. Good dimensional stability and heat resistance.

7. Good processability, can be made into different forms of products such as strands, bundles, felts, and woven fabrics.

8. Transparent through light.

9. Good adhesion with resin.

10, the price is cheap.

11. It is not easy to burn, and can be melted into glass beads at high temperature.

Of course, glass fiber also has certain shortcomings, mainly brittleness and poor wear resistance.

3. What are the types of glass fiber materials

There are many classification methods for glass fibers, which can generally be classified from the aspects of glass raw material composition, monofilament diameter, fiber appearance, production method and fiber characteristics:

1. According to the composition of glass raw materials

(1) E-glass fiber: also known as E glass fiber, the R2O content is less than 0.8%. It is an aluminoborosilicate component. Its chemical stability, electrical insulation performance and strength are very good. It is mainly used for electrical insulation. Materials, FRP reinforcements and tire cords.

(2) Medium alkali glass fiber: The content of R2O is 11.9%-16.4%. It is a soda-lime silicate component. Because of its high alkali content, it cannot be used as an electrical insulating material, but its chemical stability and strength are good. Generally used as latex cloth, checkered cloth base material, acid filter cloth, window screen base material, etc. It can also be used as FRP reinforcement material with less strict requirements on electrical properties and strength.

(3) High alkali glass fiber: R2O content is greater than or equal to 15%. Generally, glass fiber is drawn from broken flat glass, broken bottle glass, etc. as raw materials. Waterproof and moisture-proof materials such as battery separators, pipe wraps and felt sheets.

2. According to the diameter of the monofilament

(1) Crude fiber: The diameter of the monofilament is generally 30um.

(2) Primary fiber: its monofilament diameter is greater than 20um.

(3) Intermediate fiber: monofilament diameter 10-20um.

(4) Advanced fiber: also known as textile fiber, its monofilament diameter is 3-10um. Glass fibers with a monofilament diameter less than 4um are also called ultrafine fibers.

Generally, 5-10um fiber is used for textile products, and 10-14um fiber is generally suitable for roving, non-woven fabric, chopped fiber mat, etc.

3. According to fiber appearance

(1) Continuous fibers: fibers that continue indefinitely, mainly drawn by the skeletal plate method. After textile processing, they can be made into glass yarns, ropes, cloths, belts, rovings and other products.

(2) Fixed-length fiber: its length is limited, generally 300-500mm, but sometimes it can be longer, such as basically messy long fibers in the felt. For example, the long cotton made by the steam blowing method is only a few hundred millimeters long after it is broken into wool yarn. Others include rod method wool yarn, primary roving and other products, all of which are made into wool yarn or felt.

(3) Glass wool: It is also a fixed-length glass fiber, and its fiber is shorter, generally below 150mm or shorter. The organization is fluffy in shape, similar to cotton wool, so it is also called short cotton. It is mainly used for heat preservation and sound absorption.

4. According to fiber characteristics

This is a new type of glass fiber that is newly developed to meet the special requirements of use. The fiber itself has some special and excellent properties. It can be roughly divided into: high-strength glass fiber, high-modulus glass fiber, high temperature resistant glass fiber, alkali resistant Glass fiber, acid-resistant glass fiber, ordinary glass fiber (referring to alkali-free and medium-alkali glass fiber), optical fiber, low dielectric constant glass fiber, conductive fiber, etc.

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