Demand in the glass fiber industry: widening the boundaries and continuing to grow

Glass fiber continues to expand downstream applications, mainly due to its excellent performance and economy:

Density meets lightweight requirements. The density of glass fiber is lower than that of ordinary metals, and the smaller the material density, the lighter the mass per unit volume. Tensile modulus and tensile strength meet stiffness and strength performance requirements. Due to its designability, composite materials have higher stiffness and strength than other materials such as steel and aluminum alloys, and are more suitable for high-pressure environments.

Building materials: the largest and most basic application field of glass fiber
Building materials are the largest downstream application of glass fiber, accounting for about 34%. With resin as the matrix and glass fiber as the reinforcing material, FRP is widely used in various building structures such as doors and windows, formwork, steel bars, and reinforced concrete beams.

Wind power blade reinforcement materials: leading products are constantly iterated, and the threshold is high
The wind turbine blade structure includes the main beam system, upper and lower skins, blade root reinforcement layers, etc. The raw materials include resin matrix, reinforcement materials, adhesives, core materials, etc. The reinforcement materials mainly include glass fiber and carbon fiber. Glass fiber (wind power yarn) is used in wind power blades in the form of single/multi-axial warp knitted fabrics, which mainly play the role of light weight and high strength performance, accounting for about 28% of the material cost of wind power blades.

Transportation: Vehicle Lightweight
The application of glass fiber in the field of transportation is mainly reflected in the three major fields of rail transit equipment, automobile manufacturing and other vehicle manufacturing. Glass fiber composite material is an important material for automobile lightweight. Glass fiber reinforced composite materials are widely used in automobile front-end modules, engine covers, decorative parts, new energy vehicle battery protection boxes, and composite leaf springs due to their advantages of high strength, light weight, modularity, and low cost. Reducing the quality of the whole vehicle has a significant effect on reducing the fuel consumption of fuel vehicles and improving the cruising range of new energy vehicles under the background of “dual carbon”.