AGY launches E-glass sizing for aerospace industry

Fibres with 947 sizing can be woven into fabric and used in composite applications without additional finishing.

Yarns produced with the new 947 sizing have significantly higher tensile strengths than their counterparts coated with traditional oil and starch sizes, reports AGY.

Also, because fabrics made from 947-coated yarns need not undergo the damaging heat treatments or other cleaning processes that can erode fabric integrity, they can contribute considerably more strength to the composite materials into which they are incorporated.

AGY claims that unidirectional standard general purpose epoxy laminates manufactured with this fibre have an ASTM 3039 tensile strength of 200 ksi (1379 MPa), a 40% improvement over traditional E-glass yarns; and an ASTM D3410 compressive strength of 125 ksi (862 MPa), a 45% improvement over traditional E-glass yarns.

“This new sizing system will provide our aerospace customers with new opportunities to remove weight from traditional composite products,” says Drew Walker, AGY Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “947 has been developed for a wide range of applications. It is compatible not only with epoxy and phenolic resins but also with thermoplastics. It even has the potential to be used in the development of hybrid glass and carbon fibre fabrics.”

The sizing is initially available on AGY’s DE75 yarn which is used primarily in aerospace fabrics and will soon be offered in other yarns.

AGY, headquartered in Aiken, South Carolina USA, produces glass fibre yarns and high-strength glass fibre reinforcements used in a variety of composites applications.