Trade.Information

Company Name: EPTA

Company Type: Manufacturing

Company Profile

Pultrusion is an automated manufacturing process for the production of constant cross-sectionally shaped profiles of fiber reinforced composites. The profiles produced with this process can compete with traditional metal profiles such as steel and aluminium for strength and weight. The polymer reinforced matrix can be formulated to meet the most demanding chemical, flame retardant, electrical and environmental conditions.

The reinforcements of the pultruded matrix are usually glass fiber rovings or woven fabrics. Sometimes non woven mats are used as cross sectional reinforcements or as outside protective layers. Pultrusion Technology knows a number of "branched off" Technologies, such as: Pull-winding and Pull-forming. Pullwinding makes it possible to not only provide longitudinal (axial) reinforcements, but also put in one or more cross layers (tangential). Pullforming is a lesser used variety, whereby the material after the forming die, in its uncured phase, is formed in its final form by pressing of squeezing and then is cured.

About Company

Pultrusion is one of the oldest processes for the manufacture of long fibre reinforced thermosetting plastics, and it is also the oldest continuous processing technique.

As early as 1954, W. B. Goldworthy, one of the pioneers of the fibre composite technique, presented a detailed description of the pertinent process and plant engineering principles to professional circles in the USA. This approach was largely employed to make profiles for uniaxial stress used, for instance, for fishing rods, ski poles, hammer handles, poles for vaulting, etc. Other countries, too, started to utilise the high tensile strength of glass fibres for pultruded profiles in the 50s. In this context, vertical pultrusion techniques targeted specifically for complex profile cross-sections, primarily hollow profiles, were developed in addition to the horizontal approach, where the fibre feed around a centrically suspended core was less problematic than with the horizontal approach. Thus, a wide range of profile cross-sections was available even in the 1960s .

This process has experienced considerable diversification over the years in order to extend the property profile; today, a variety of profiles are available for a number of purposes, both with regard to the dimensions of the profiles as well as the complexity of the reinforcing structure. In 1960 there were about 20 manufacturers all in all, located primarily in the United States; while today at least 90 pultruders are serving the main markets in the USA, Europe, and the Far East. The market volume in Europe alone reaches an estimated 16,000 tons p/a.