Saint-Gobain Vetrotex

	Description of the process
	Our products available for this process

abrics or textile structure made of glass filament products can
be impregnated with various chemicals to impart the characteristics required by the end application as for example alkali, acid or high temperature resistance, compatibility with bituminous sheet.

When the fabrics are used as reinforcement, for example, in laminate for printed wiring boards, the textile structure can't be used directly because the textile sizes are not compatible with synthetic resins. Additional operations are required:

- desizing in order to remove all the organic materials applied to the glass filaments during the previous processing stages.

-impregnation by a coupling agent system (silanes), substances that promote a strong bond at the interface of the matrix resin and the glass filament surface.

Remark: special textile plastic sizes are available for fabric formation. Glass fabrics made with these sizes don't require processing through
a desizing operation.



	Glass fabrics can be impregnated with continuous processing line for industrial textiles taking into account the specificity of glass products: the low elongation as well as the sensitivity to abrasion. For the reinforcement of resin, desizing is made by heat cleaning. The modern weaving technologies allow the production of large glass fabric rolls. The quantity of organic materials is high and the heat cleaning process necessitates generally 2 steps : - First step: the glass fabric runs at a high temperature during a very short time in a continuous oven and is wound on a metallic mandrel. A large part of the organic materials are removed. The operation is often called coronizing or caramelizing because the fabric color during the operation becomes brown. - Second step: the metallic mandrels on which the glass cloth has been wound, are put in a large static oven. The batch heat cleaning operation can take till 3 days and the temperature within can reach about 400°C (752°F). After this operation the glass fabric is white again, the Loss on Ignition is below 0.1%. Then the finish (coupling agent system) is applied on the heat-cleaned fabric with a finishing line generally equipped with modern automatic inspection systems to check the fabric surface.



	All Saint-Gobain Vetrotex glass products can be used for the production of fabrics impregnated with various chemicals. The size and linear density selection depends on the end application but T6G/M, 5310C and 876s products are recommended where high tensile strength is required. For application where heat cleaning process is applied, Saint-Gobain Vetrotex has developed a full range of products with outstanding heat cleaning performance: T3F size for 5µm yarns (D yarns), T32K/M for 7µm yarns (E yarns), T30G/K/M and T31K for 6 and 9µm yarns (DE and G yarns). Products sized with TD22G (yarns, plied yarns, Zerotwist) have excellent compatibility with polyester, epoxy and phenolic resins and are recommended for reinforcement application when the heat-cleaning process can't be used.