Textiles For Industrial Applications

Companies with experience in traditional textiles manufacturing can create opportunities in the demanding, but lucrative, technical textiles market.

By Jürg Rupp, Executive Editor

T echnical textiles have made rapid advances, and the use of fabrics or nonwovens in industrial applications is steadily increasing. All successes in this competitive, but highly profit-yielding, segment are based on experience and know-how in traditional textile product manufacturing. Only those companies that bring with them adequate experience of traditional textiles production can create opportunities in this demanding but lucrative market.

Technical textiles are not a new invention. The ancient Egyptians knew how to employ textile reinforcements. Today, technical textiles are one of the few sectors of the textile industry that can report a constant turnover growth rate.

Nonwovens manufacturing grew out of traditional textile manufacturing.

Increasing Markets

Since the mid-1960s, technical textiles have made rapid advances. The greatest market suppliers in this area already are organized on the basis of separate business areas. In Germany, the share of technical textiles in total sales already stands at 40 percent.

One advantage in the sale of technical textiles is their proximity to market. Most products are tailor-made. The most important point in production is the know-how, and there is less emphasis on the quantity to be produced. Technical textiles are niche products, with the exception of disposables in the nonwovens sector. This is another advantage for markets with high-tech products, such as Western Europe or the United States. Industrial fabrics are not only a substitute for traditional fabrics, but also have applications in new products. The list of applications is endless. Just to mention a few:

•            personal care and hygiene;
•           wipes;
•           medical
•            protective apparel;
•            transportation; and
•            geotextiles.

The list of the individual links in the textile production chain is growing. The producers of yarns and fabrics, as well as the finishers, must have an extremely good knowledge of the material to be processed.

Nonwoven products are found in such products as personal care and hygiene, and medical.

Solutions, Not Machinery

For traditional textile manufacturers, from fiber to finished textiles, it is not necessarily important to know where the final product is to be employed. Precisely the reverse is true in the technical textiles sector, where the product and the application are frequently known prior to the production process being considered. Tailor-made products and manufacturing processes are two of the basic reasons behind the continuing and overwhelming success of technical textiles and nonwovens. One is not selling fashion, but rather function. It is vitally important to have a change in attitude and stop thinking simply in terms of spinning or weaving. In somewhat overstated terms, technical textiles suppliers do not want to buy machines, but solutions such as those offered by upstream products.

Modern technical textiles must meet requirements relating to the following areas:
•            physical;
•           thermal;
•            electrical;
•            chemical, for example in chemical cleaning; and
•            biological.

The understanding of these requirements allows conclusions and deductions to be drawn with regard to further processing.

Transportation end-uses including car door panels are another example of typical nonwoven applications.

Man-Made Fibers

For centuries, it was the raw materials employed that primarily decided the behavior of a textile fabric in the finished article of clothing. However, at the end of the 1970s and into the early 1980s, the jargons “apparel physiology” and “functional textiles” appeared in the market.

The failing market for traditional textiles presented an opportunity for the development of new products based on the extensive know-how of conventional textile production. These efforts were supported by the man-made fiber industry in Europe and Japan, which created ever-better, tailor-made yarns. Using leisure and sportswear as a locomotive, this branch generated massive levels of activity that have continued up to the present. Initial signals for a rethink within the entire textile sector have derived from technical textiles.

Very expensive fibers like glass, Teflon®, carbon fibers and aramids are used today for protection against heat and in composite materials. For technical textiles, the man-made fibers applied in most cases are polyester, polyamide and polypropylene. The fibers are selected based on their characteristics. Carbon fibers are used for moldings in lightweight constructions such as aircraft. A current example is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which uses 20-percent less fuel thanks to lightweight construction.

The relative equilibrium in global fiber consumption that previously existed is now the object of constant change. In the recent past, reference was almost always made to a ratio of approximately 50:50 between natural and man-made fibers. At present, cotton has only a 37-percent share of global fiber consumption, and wool has 3 percent.

The development of technical textiles plays an outstanding role in this fiber use ratio change. In addition, improved fibers and improved fabrics have steadily corrected the previous negative image of man-made fibers. Experts predict that by 2010, man-made fibers will have a global market share of 72 percent, cotton 26 percent and wool 2 percent.

None of the made-made fibers introduced over the last two decades have had such an impact as microfibers. Microfiber fabrics have many unique characteristics. Microfilament nonwovens with functional characteristics also are on the winning side. The first super microfiber was the Japanese product Alcantara, which had a yarn count of less than 0.08 decitex.

The lightweight composite construction of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner reduces fuel costs.

Natural Fibers

Cotton is by far the world’s most important natural fiber, with a market share of around 75 percent. Over the years, global cotton production has grown slowly but steadily. The nonwovens industry has long recognized the advantages of cotton and produces numerous cotton items, especially in the medical and hygiene sectors.

The fiber quality demanded by the traditional textile industry is not the only decisive factor in this connection — certain waste fibers can also be recycled back into production. Various companies — from machinery producers to finishers — with a mastery of cotton fibers, have already adopted this approach. Hydroentangled, or spunlace, and airlaid nonwovens made of mostly cotton fiber webs are currently the products most in demand. Lightweight nonwovens for medical and hygiene products are flourishing.

Needlepunching technology, such as Germany-based Dilo's Multipunch, is gaining ground because it is flexible, yet sophisticated.

Long-Staple Fibers

Long-staple fibers have enormous potential, but are insufficiently exploited by the countries capable of producing them. Jute and other bast fibers are biodegradable and therefore enjoy a major sympathy bonus. Although jute and similar fibers are insignificant in apparel, in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, they play an extremely important role in the packing, home and technical textiles areas. After cotton, jute and wool, flax is fourth in the global natural fiber production rankings, and, like jute, it possesses enormous potential.

Long-staple fibers have been used with growing success in technical textiles. Accordingly, it is forecast that natural fibers will be employed to an increasing extent in the automotive sector for both economic and ecological reasons. Flax, sisal and hemp meet the high requirements for tensile, bending and tearing strength, while jute and other fibers also offer possibilities for technical and automotive applications.

Nonwovens

By 2010, man-made fibers will have a more-than-70-percent share of the fiber market. The cotton industry in general and in the West in particular are looking for new ideas. One possibility could be nonwovens. As the demand for nonwovens has steadily increased, it has been met by the technology and ingenuity of raw materials and equipment suppliers, nonwoven producers and converters. The production of nonwovens can be described as taking place in three stages:
•           web formation;
•           web bonding; and
•           finishing treatments.

The opportunity to combine different raw materials and different techniques accounts for the diversity of the industry and its products. Staple-fiber nonwoven manufacturing begins with arranging fibers in a sheet or web. The fibers can be staple fibers packed in bales, or filaments extruded from molten polymer granules.

Four methods are used to form a web, and nonwovens are usually referred to by one of these methods:
•           Drylaid;
•            Spunlaid;
•            Wetlaid; and
•           Other techniques.

Nonwovens are an important aspect of the 21st-century textile industry, and have an annual growth of at least 4.5 percent — a figure the traditional textile industry would be pleased to achieve. Because the trend is toward increasingly lightweight products, the growth in quantity or meterage actually amounts to 12 percent. Today, the nonwovens sector is moving away from disposables in the direction of more durable products. Spunlace, thermobonding and needlefelt technologies are all gaining ground. Needlepunching technology is gaining more and more ground for many reasons, including its flexibility and the sophisticated machinery, as well as the easy treatment of all kinds of fibers including recycled fiber materials. Geotextiles, automotive materials and filter media occupy the limelight, as do bicomponent fibers for every conceivable quality of composite.

Recycling

Throughout the textile chain, the word “sustainability” is no longer an empty phrase, and recycling is growing in significance. Because the majority of thermoplastic man-made fibers are easy to recycle, products that formerly consisted of various components have now been restructured to allow recycling. Adding recycled fiber material of at least 10 percent to new products is reducing raw material costs considerably. For example, recycled polyester fibers from PET bottles are used with great success in products offered by the United States-based outdoor apparel brand Patagonia®.

More than 10-percent recycled material can be added to nonwovens products during processing, thereby saving materials costs.

Finishing

Finishing plays an outstanding role in the production of technical textiles. Knowledge of the finishing processes employed — such as coating, finishing or surface treatment — also is extremely important to the up- and downstream production phases because finishing generally has a direct link to the finished article. Appropriate finishing can make a fairly simple manufactured fabric or nonwoven into a high-performance product. Processes such as flame-resistant lamination or coating with solvent-based chemicals, which have negative environmental effects, are disappearing.

Let’s Work Together

Construction using textiles is one of the oldest architectonic forms in human history. Today, because of their outstanding economic and ecological advantages, textile constructions are an indispensable element of modern architecture. Modern sports stadiums have membrane roofs. The example of working together to create a sports stadium shows that there are a lot of manufacturers in the production chain:
•           fiber producer;
•           yarn producer;
•           weaver;
•           finisher;
•            fabricator;
•            contractor; and
•           stadium owner.

The challenge is to inform all participating parties of the technical textiles possibilities. A successful job can be done only if the owner and the architect know that a membrane rather than concrete is the ideal material for the roof covering. The biggest obstacle to technical textiles communication in all production stages is the enormous variety of application fields. One must build up a market image through competence and become a credible supplier, and literally take the product to the market.

Market Intelligence

In the age of global networking, most companies now recognize that one has to follow the market. Those wishing to enter the technical textiles market must gather information concerning the relevant possibilities and facts. The industry incorporates virtually every textile process including some specially developed for this sector. The problem is that little valuable information is available for technical textiles. One solution is Messe Frankfurt’s Techtextil exhibition for technical textiles. Only at Techtextil is the whole spectrum of technical textiles and nonwovens and their applications shown. One key to Techtextil’s success is the fact that this technical exhibition communicates not merely with textile target groups; it is particularly concerned with future stages for the products.

Despite written agreements, cell phones and e-communications, every relationship takes place between people. It is services to the manufacturing industry that constitute the decisive factor. If one wants to be a successful player in the field of industrial fabrics, he must earn a reputation and gain the customer’s trust that he’s able to solve problems by developing a new product.

January/February 2008