The application potential of composite materials is huge

2022-11-22

The development of modern high technology cannot be separated from composite materials, which play a very important role in the development of modern science and technology. The research depth and application breadth of composite materials, as well as the speed and scale of production development, have become one of the important symbols to measure the advanced level of science and technology of a country. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the global composite market has witnessed rapid growth, especially in Asia and China. Between 2003 and 2008 China grew at an average annual rate of 15%, India at 9.5% and Europe and North America at just 4%. At present, the global production of composite materials is about 8.2 million tons, of which China accounts for 1.312 million tons, accounting for 16%. The rapid development of China's composite material industry will bring opportunities for commercial bank credit business. Data released by China Glass Steel Industry Association show that in 2007 China (mainland, the same below) industry, composite glass fiber production of 1.6 million tons, of which 1.155 million tons for glass steel (FRP) industry; The output of unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) was 1.35 million tons, of which 688,000 tons was used in the field of FRP, accounting for 51%; The output of vinyl resin 12,640 tons, gelcoat resin 15,870 tons.


In the next few years, Chinese composite material is still in the rapid development period. From the specific application point of view, only the energy saving and emission reduction policies proposed by the FRP industry countries, and the reduction of water saving to 10% sulfur dioxide in 2010 compared with that in 2005, these two goals will promote the wider application of FRP; The development of shipbuilding and automobile industry will also boost the development of FRP industry. From the perspective of sub-industry application, there are three areas with the strongest growth: construction, automobile and wind power. They will form hot spots. In 2008, the growth of composite materials can still reach 15%. The construction market will become the largest composite market in China. Construction is an important application of composite materials, the rapid development of the real estate market, due to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games development faster. Major building applications such as water gutters, cooling towers and transparent panels are manufactured using the hand paste process. According to the China FRP Association, the annual growth rate of cooling tower industry is 15 to 20 percent. The GRP municipal pipe market is also growing rapidly. There are about 300 FRP pipe and tank manufacturers in China, with a total production of 300,000 tons in 2004 and 450,000 tons in 2007. Other important industries, consumer goods market and electronic and electrical appliances market, mainly home appliances and electronic industry equipment and other thermoplastic products. China produced 400,000 tons of enhanced thermoplastics in 2005, up 33% from 2004, and about 550,000 tons in 2007.


Fiber composite materials are widely used in infrastructure applications, including basic applications in Bridges, houses and roads, both at home and abroad. Compared with traditional materials, fiber composite materials have many advantages, especially in Bridges and in building reinforcement, tunnel engineering, as well as large storage warehouse repair and reinforcement. In recent years, there has been a wide space for development of infrastructure. From the overall point of view, infrastructure construction is still in the infancy stage, existing problems are still prominent, such as: the obvious lack of investment in agricultural infrastructure, unbalanced development of transportation and energy construction, urban infrastructure construction still lags behind. These problems are not only the neck, but also the development potential, the demand for fiber composite materials will appear increasing trend. The use of composites in automotive manufacturing will also grow rapidly. In recent years, the annual growth rate of China's automobile market is more than 30%, which is the fastest in the world. Meanwhile, driven by high economic growth and the improvement of living standards, the energy demand is exceeding the domestic supply capacity. On the other hand, it provides space for the compound with the effect of "reducing the burden". At present, the composite molding is not limited to hand paste, molding, winding, etc., new process methods such as rolling molding, pultrusion, autoclave and so on have emerged. The matrix resin has been developed from the traditional general purpose o-benzene, m-benzene resin, epoxy resin and phenolic resin to the high-performance epoxy vinyl ester resin, and the reinforcement materials have been developed from glass fiber to the high-performance carbon fiber and arylon fiber. The use of these high performance materials has greatly improved the structure and performance of composite materials, increased the molding speed and manufacturing quality, and accelerated the application process of composite materials in automobile. It is believed that with the development of the vehicle industry, a variety of excellent performance of raw materials will be developed to meet and promote the growing needs of the vehicle industry. Different molding processes such as SMC/BM, RIM, as well as vacuum molding, injection molding and extrusion have their corresponding applications in vehicle manufacturing. Since the beginning of this century, many world famous vehicle manufacturers have invested a lot of manpower and material resources to carry out composite technology, and advanced composite materials in the automotive industry application research.


At present, composite vehicle manufacturing is widely used. Wind power is a huge new market for composites. Driven by the Renewable Energy Law, which took effect in January 2006, our wind energy market is another important market for composites. The new law mandates that 70% of wind equipment must be produced locally. China is second only to the United States in power consumption, the world's fastest growing energy demand. To reduce its reliance on coal and oil and reduce environmental problems caused by coal-fired power generation, China has enacted a renewable energy law, which mandates that at least 5 percent of electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2010 and at least 10 percent by 2020. China has a large land area, a long coastline, and abundant wind energy resources. The land-based exploitable wind energy resources have a power generation potential of 253GW, and the offshore wind energy resources have a power generation capacity of 750GW. Under the above favorable circumstances, China's wind power generation has a huge space for development. Wind power capacity is expected to grow at an annual rate of 39% from 2004 to 2010 and 20% from 2010 to 2020. Wind power generation requires a large number of composite materials, the rotor blades, nacelle covers, and fairing of most wind turbines are made of composite materials. Each wind turbine has three blades, and the scale of the blades is getting larger. A large offshore wind turbine blade is more than 60 meters long and may weigh up to 20 tons. So these wind turbine components create a very strong market for composites. The composite materials used for wind turbine are mainly glass fiber, and the application of carbon fiber is also increasing.



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