Insights by Fiberline #1

Do you prefer to read the news? Here is Fiberline Insights #1 in text

Hi there

Welcome to the first edition of “Insights by Fiberline” which is a new initiative where we each quarter bring news to you in a short video. Each time we will choose tree new topics around the industry, pultrusion, and Fiberline.

If you have a suggestion on what you want us to talk about in this video please comment or write directly to us.

Now let's get back to the three topics I have chosen for this session.

Raw material prices and spikes in general prices for construction material

As your properly already know, circumstances in Europe have caused us to face unusual times. Many types of raw materials are rising sharply in price and there is little that we manufacturers can do about it. Both oil and gas have risen sharply in the last few weeks from an already high level and not to forget the overseas transport.

We in the pultrusion industry have also been affected by all of this, fortunately for us, the increase in the main raw materials like fibres and resins has been reasonable. If we compear the prices across the industry pultruded FRP profiles are neck and neck compared to the extruded aluminium. Not long ago you could purchase 1 kg aluminium for less than one euro, today you will have to pay 4-5 euros.

The situation is also bad for stainless steel. Many alloys used for stainless steel have been mined and imported from the areas and regions affected by the war skyrocketing the stainless steel prices. This has also an effect on us since all of our accessories are made from stainless steel.

We at Fiberline have undertaken several steps to ensure stable price levels and the evaluability of our products. For the first, we have very close cooperation with our most important suppliers where we have secured delivery preferences.

Furthermore, we have increased our inventories and made available for all customers a live view of the stock situation on our homepage.

Like the rest of the World, we would like to see a quick end to the war in Ukraine and stabilization of the area.

 

2,05 Introduction of a new product, carbon fibre lamellas

This product here is not new. We at Fiberline have offered this for several years, but what is new is that you now can buy it directly through the website.

Let me tell you more about the properties: It is made from carbon fibre and vinylester resin and has a dimension of 200x5 mm. From the homepage, you can order lengths up to 6-meter but on request we can ship lengths up to 60 meters.

On both sides, you will have peel ply layer, when removed you will have the optimal surface for bonding. The mechanical properties are also good with stiffness of around 140 GPa and tensile strength is over 1600 MPa.

Now listen to this: A single lamella can carry 20 elephants, 15 family cars and 2 Airbus A320 aircraft all at once!

These properties can be used to increase the stability an strength of existing structures. We have, for example, used it to increase the stiffness of our pultruded fibreglass profiles, primarily for bridge constructions. By bonding the lamellas on one or both sides of profiles considerable increase in stiffness can be achieved without acceding much weight.

This test here shows the increase in E modulus of an I200 beam with one and two carbon fibre lamellas. Furthermore, you can use the lamellas in other fibreglass conversion processes like hand-layup or infusion.

3,33 Status on our new production site

As many of you following Fiberline knows that we are in the middle of moving our production to Poland. This is a step towards becoming more competitive in the marked and especially offering better solutions for machinig and assembly.

Now let me give you an update on the status of the move. The new production site of our pultruded fibreglass profiles will be just outside the city of Stettin in the far west of Poland and around 50 km from the German border.

The production of simpler profiles is already running where the goal is to move the entire production before the summer holidays. The area around Stettin offers many skilled craftsmen many of which we have already hired. These crafts are already in full swing machines of our profiles.

In the future, we will invest much more in this service and offer even more assembled constructions. That was all from me and the first episode of “Insights by Fiberline”. I hope you enjoyed it, and you will tune in again when we bring the next episode just before the summer holiday.

For the next episode I would like to introduce to you a new and exciting product.

Have a great day and see you next time!