Epoxy expertise enables award-winning yarn

A Huntsman Advanced Materials product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 12, 2007

Huntsman Advanced Materials assisted EMS in the development of Grilon MS yarn by applying its expertise in the performance and mechanical properties of epoxy resin systems.

EMS-Chemie is a Swiss-based performance polymer manufacturer that develops polyamides for extrusion and injection moulding.

The company's specialist textile business unit, EMS-Griltech has received the JEC 2007 Innovation Award, in the Process Category for its new Grilon MS matrix soluble yarn, which was developed with technical support from Huntsman Advanced Materials.

Grilon yarns are spun from low melting copolymers.

Essentially, these are adhesives in yarn form and were originally developed for the garment industry.

In recent years, this technology has transferred successfully to the composites industry.

The award-winning new matrix soluble auxiliary yarn, Grilon MS was specifically developed by EMS for use in the composites industry.

It is a thermal binder yarn which exhibits flawless compatibility with epoxy resin systems.

Huntsman Advanced Materials assisted EMS in the development of Grilon MS yarn by using Huntsman's extensive experience in the performance and mechanical properties of epoxy resin systems.

Grilon MS delivers a range of benefits to the composites industry.

It can be used to stabilise dry reinforcing structures such as unidirectional fabrics (UD) and noncrimp fabrics (NCF) or as a stitchyarn for tailored fibre placement (TFP) and for preform assembly.

Unlike current standard yarns, Grilon MS has no detrimental impact on the performance properties of the composite part, as during the curing process it disappears into the matrix.

This means the carbon fibres are released in their optimum orientation and shape, so producing a composite part with improved mechanical properties.

Besides acting an auxiliary yarn, Grilon MS is also a thermoforming binder because it melts at low temperature (around 120C).

This eliminates the need for an additional binder powder coating on the reinforcing structure.

The performance capabilities of Grilon MS in the production of resin transfer moulding (RTM) parts are currently being assessed under the Vantex Project, a dedicated research and development project run by CTI, the independent Swiss funding organisation for technical innovation.

In the Vantex Project, Grilon MS will be tested with two of Huntsman Advanced Materials' latest generation resin epoxy systems together with another benchmark material.

The yarn will be used for the design and production of RTM parts using Huntsman resins.

These parts will then be bonded using Huntsman structural adhesive.

The finished parts will undergo a series of static mechanical, impact, thermal and fatigue tests to assess the improvement in performance over standard yarns and to establish processing guidelines.

The Vantex project results are expected in June 2008.