Suntech Rapier Loom Will Enter the Carbon Fiber Era in the Future

Hangzhou, China, December 30, 2021 --(PR.com)-- At the end of 2021, Suntech made an official announcement on the social platform: Special fabric looms will be Suntech's next breakthrough field.

As a leader in the loom industry, Suntech will break through the ST series of high-speed rapier looms in 2021, positioning its strategic plan in the manufacture of special fabric looms. In today's high-speed industrialization, the uses of carbon fiber are becoming diversified. In applications that require high temperature and high physical stability, carbon fiber composites have irreplaceable advantages.

Carbon fiber application direction

1. Composite materials
In addition to the traditional use of carbon fiber as an insulation material, carbon fiber is often used as a reinforcing material to be added to resin, metal, ceramics, concrete, and other materials to form composite materials. Carbon fiber has become the most important reinforcing material for advanced composite materials. Because carbon fiber composite materials have the advantages of light and strong, light and hard, high-temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, fatigue resistance, good structural and dimensional stability, good design, large-area integral molding, etc., they are widely used in aerospace, national defense and Various fields of civil industry.

Carbon fiber can be processed into fabrics, cushions, tape, paper, and other materials. High-performance carbon fiber is the most important reinforcing material for manufacturing advanced composite materials.

2. Civil Engineering and Construction
Carbon fiber is also used in industrial and civil buildings, railways, highways, bridges, tunnels, chimneys, and tower structures. In the future, there will be good applications in railway construction, large-scale roofing systems, and reinforcement of sound insulation walls. The application of these carbon fibers is also promising. It has the characteristics of low density, high strength, good durability, strong corrosion-resistance, acid and alkali resistance, good flexibility, and strong strain ability. The truss beam frame roof made of carbon fiber pipes is about 50% lighter than steel, which makes the large-scale structure reach the practical level, and the construction efficiency and seismic performance are greatly improved. In addition, carbon fiber does not require additional bolts and rivets to fix the reinforced concrete structure, which has less interference to the original concrete structure, and the construction process is simple.

3. Aerospace
Carbon fiber is an important strategic basic material for cutting-edge weapons such as rockets, satellites, missiles, fighter jets, and ships. The application of carbon fiber composite materials on the fuselage and engine shell of strategic missiles can greatly reduce the weight of the missile and increase the missile's range and surprise attack capability. For example, the three-stage intercontinental missile shells developed by the United States in the 1980s all use carbon fiber and epoxy resin composite materials. Carbon fiber composite materials have also begun to be widely used in the new generation of fighters.

4. Automotive materials
Carbon fiber materials have also become a material favored by automobile manufacturers and have begun to be widely used in automobile interior and exterior trim parts. The biggest advantage of carbon fiber as an automotive material is its lightweight and high strength, which is only 20% to 30% of the weight of steel, but its hardness is more than 10 times that of steel. Therefore, the use of carbon fiber materials in automobile manufacturing can achieve breakthroughs in automobile lightweighting and bring social benefits of energy-saving. The industry believes that the use of carbon fiber in automobile manufacturing will increase.

5. Sporting Goods
Carbon fiber is used in sports and leisure fields, such as rackets, fishing rods, tennis rackets, badminton rackets, bicycles, ski poles, skis, windsurfing masts, sailing hulls, and other sporting goods are one of its main users. Carbon fiber.

Rackets and racket frames are important forms of expression in sports applications. It is estimated that 34 million pairs of bats are produced every year. Forty percent of bats in the world are made of carbon fiber. The market for tennis racket frames is about 6 million pairs per year, and other sports applications include hockey sticks, ski poles, etc. Carbon fiber is also used in other marine sports such as boating and boating.

With its stable performance and superior strength and rigidity, carbon fiber is likely to become the mainstream fiber material in the future. Carbon fiber cloth has also become a trend in the textile industry. It is especially suitable for responding to increased user load in buildings, changes in engineering use functions, material aging, concrete strength levels below the design value, structural crack treatment, service component repair in harsh environments, and reinforcement project protection. Suntech keeps pace with the times and conducts in-depth research on the weaving of carbon fiber fabrics. In the future, it will use smart textile machinery to fully produce carbon fiber fabrics.