3B-the fibreglass company is a leading European developer and supplier of fibreglass products and technologies for the reinforcement of thermoplastics and thermosets. This dynamic and entrepreneurial company has two state-of-the-art fibreglass manufacturing facilities in Battice, Belgium and Birkeland, Norway. To maintain our technology leadership position, the 3B Science & Technology Centre provides a unique hub of expertise for future development and innovation.
3B’s growth agenda builds upon three strategic drivers that are sustainability, technological innovation and a global presence to most effectively service our international customers.
The company operates two unique eco-responsible and high performance glass technologies, Advantex® and HiPer-tex™. These two brands combine durability with eco-responsibility and versatility, making them the materials of choice for a wide range of industries.
3B solutions for wind energy
3B’s unrivalled competence in fibreglass development and technology is helping create a more sustainable future throughout the complete wind solutions value chain. The following 3B brands and products offer leading edge performance to help design and implement wind energy solutions:
- Advantex®
- HiPer-tex™
- Continuous Filament Mat (CFM)
Recently, 3B-the fibreglass company has blown fresh prospects into the wind energy sector by introducing a new benchmark series of products for turbine blade manufacturing.
The first product in the series is Advantex® SE2020 a new single-end roving specifically engineered for epoxy polymer systems utilized in resin infusion or prepreg processes.
At present multi-compatible reinforcements are commonly used with different resin systems such as epoxy (EP), unsaturated polyester (UP), vinyl ester (VE), etc. However by developing innovative and proprietary sizing technology focused on a specific resin family (epoxy), 3B is changing the rules of the game. By optimizing the coupling of the reinforcement uniquely for epoxy resin systems 3B thereby achieves best-in-class composite properties. With such a value proposition, 3B’s renewed product offering becomes an industry benchmark for structural resins.
Compared to conventional materials in the market place, 3B’s new Advantex® SE2020 roving for epoxy resin systems offers (properties of uni-directional epoxy laminates with weight glass fraction of 79%):
- 61.6 MPa Transverse Tensile Strength
- 79.6 MPa Interlaminar Shear Strength (ILSS)
The second game-changing product in its new benchmark series for wind turbine rotor blades is HiPer-tex™ W2020 high performance fibre glass which allows for longer and lighter blades for both offshore and onshore wind turbines.
3B’s technological expertise and manufacturing know-how delivers a high modulus glass with outstanding mechanical properties providing significantly greater strength and strain-to-failure than traditional E-glass. The new HiPer-tex™ W2020 roving offers the following exceptional properties in a typical unidirectional laminate (average glass volume fraction 60%):
- 54-56 GPa E-modulus
- 55-60 MPa transverse tensile strength
- 10 times longer lifetime in fatigue resistance versus traditional E-glass
When comparing blades manufactured with traditional E-glass, HiPer-tex™ W2020 achieves up to 10% weight saving for the same blade design and length. Alternatively, the blade length can be extended by up to 6% while maintaining the same weight but offering up to 12% more energy output.
Advantex® is a registered trademark of Owens Corning used under license.
HiPer-tex™ is a trademark of 3B.
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