BI-COMPONENT AND MONO-COMPONENT POLYPROPYLENE FIBRES USED IN FIBRE CEMENT FOR REINFORCEMENT

摘要

The fibre cement industry in Europe and Australia has 30 years of success with asbestos replacementrnmaterials. The first generation of air cured products developed in Switzerland used a combination ofrnpolyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibre from Kurraray Japan, combined with refined cellulose fibres. James Hardiernused cellulose fibres in an autoclaved technology. Since the use of PVA fibres in the industry, more interestrnhas evolved in the use of polypropylene (PP) fibres as a possible alternative to PVA. This paper describes thernuse of PP fibres (bi-component and mono-component) developed by Oerlikon Neumag for use in the fibrerncement industry. The fibres have been assessed on a pilot industrial Hatschek machine for their suitability inrnfibre cement products and also accelerated ageing test has been used to predict the service life of the product.rnThe newly developed PP fibres from Neumag have proved to be viable alternative fibres for PVA in the fibrerncement industry.