Glass manufacturing – Processes of manufacturing fibers – filaments – or preforms – Process of manufacturing optical fibers – waveguides – or...
Patent
1997-09-04
1999-10-05
Silverman, Stanley S.
Glass manufacturing
Processes of manufacturing fibers, filaments, or preforms
Process of manufacturing optical fibers, waveguides, or...
428378, 428391, 65430, 528120, 528121, 528332, C03C 2502
Patent
active
059616849
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sizing composition for glass strands, this composition reacting to heat. The present invention also relates to a process for the production of reinforcing glass strands using this composition as well as to the glass strands obtained and to the composites produced from the strands.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BACKGROUND
In the continuation of the text, "polymerization", "to polymerize", "polymerizable" and the like are understood to mean "polymerization and/or crosslinking", "to polymerize and/or to crosslink", "polymerizable and/or crosslinkable" and the like respectively.
Reinforcing glass strands are manufactured in a known way from molten glass streams flowing from die orifices. These streams are drawn in the form of continuous filaments and then these filaments are gathered into base strands, which are then collected.
Before they are gathered together in the form of strands, the filaments are coated with a size by passing over a sizer device. This deposition is necessary for the production of the strands and makes it possible to combine them with other organic and/or inorganic materials to produce composites.
The size serves, in the first place, as lubricant and protects the strands from the abrasion resulting from the high-speed friction of the strands over various devices during the abovementioned process.
The size can also ensure, in particular after polymerization, the integrity of the abovementioned strands, that is to say the binding of the filaments to one another within the strands. This integrity is in particular sought after in textile applications where the strands are subjected to strong mechanical stresses. Indeed, if the filaments show little attachment to one another, they break more readily and disrupt the operation of the textile machinery. Strands which do not exhibit integrity are moreover regarded as difficult to handle.
The size also facilitates the wetting and/or the impregnation of the strands by materials to be reinforced and helps in the creation of bonds between the said strands and the said materials. The mechanical properties of the composites obtained from the material and the strands depend in particular on the quality of the adhesion of the said material to the said strands and on the ability of the said strands to be wetted and/or to be impregnated by the said material.
The sizing compositions used must be sufficiently stable and compatible with the drawing rates of the filaments which have to pass through them (several tens of metres per second). They must in particular resist the shearing induced by the passage of the filaments and properly wet their surface at the said rates. In the case where they thermally polymerize, they must exhibit a reaction temperature which is sufficiently high to remain stable at the die. It is also desirable for these compositions to exhibit, after polymerization, a maximum degree of conversion (this degree corresponding to the ratio of the level of functional groups which have reacted in the size after heat treatment to the level, in the size, before heat treatment of reactive functional groups capable of reacting), in order to guarantee in particular that sized strands of constant quality are obtained (a size exhibiting a degree of conversion which is much below the theoretical degree expected being capable of changing over time).
The majority of sizes currently used are aqueous sizes which are easy to handle but which have to be deposited in large amounts on the filaments in order to be effective. The water generally represents 90% by weight of these sizes (in particular for reasons of viscosity), which necessitates the drying of the strands before they are used as reinforcers, it being possible for the water to be harmful to the good adhesion between the strands and the materials to be reinforced. These drying operations are lengthy and expensive, must be adapted to the manufacturing conditions of the strands and their efficiency is not always optimum. When
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Fred W. Billmeyer, Jr., "Epoxy Resins", Textbook of Polymer Science, p. 479, 1962.
Moireau Patrick
Pousse Christelle
Ruller Jacqueline A.
Silverman Stanley S.
Vetrotex France
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