Laminated beams, boards, planks, and rails with enhanced stiffness and strength, made from nylon fiber composites

摘要

Synthetic fiber composites (preferably containing nylon fibers obtained from recycled carpets) are made in laminated forms that can substitute for wooden boards, and even for structural beams (including studs, rafters, joists, etc.) in a framed house or other building. These laminates can be made from needle-punched fiber mats, which provide more extensive fiber intertwining than air-laid, bat-formed, or other fiber mats. In a preferred method of manufacture, sheets or wide strips are glued together, under pressure and using a non-foaming adhesive, to form oversized laminates having any desired thickness and desired length. The laminated sheets or strips are then sawed (such as by gang-ripping) into desired widths, to form edges that will not need additional trimming to remove excess adhesive. If suitable adhesives are used to form the adhesive layers, lamination can provide increased stiffness, compared to single-layer sheets having the same thickness. This increased stiffness can provide these laminated items with greater ability to withstand bending moments, torsional forces, and heavy longitudinal compression. These materials can also enable improved building designs and constructions that use less material, such as by increasing the spacings between adjacent studs, joists, and rafters.