It has been common knowledge since the mid-nineteen fifties, that even high-performance plastics can be enhanced withfiber reinforcements, giving them clearly improved mechanical property profiles of superior tensile strength and rigidity. Inthose days one began to stabilize polyester resins with the aid of fiberglass mats. Since then, little has changed with thisprinciple, only the materials and processes employed in the production of these compounds have been improved step-bystep.Polyurethane systems have proven to be particularly suitable for such composites, as they can be poured into open molds.The liquid blend wets the fibers in an ideal way and finally cures into a thermoset. More recently, the processing offiberglass mats (SRIM-method) has been successfully replaced by processes which already combine and blend choppedroving in the mixing head with the polyurethane matrix.
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