At this year’s Techtextil in Frankfurt (June 21-24), Oerlikon Polymer Processing Solutions will be presenting new applications focusing on the production of fibres and filaments for industrial textiles, including airbags, seat belts, tyre cord, geotextiles and filters.

The yarns used in airbags are made predominantly from polyamide but as a result of increasingly diverse airbag applications and also the increasing size of the systems used, polyester is also used today, depending on the application requirements and cost-benefit considerations. In addition to high productivity and low energy consumption, Oerlikon Barmag technologies excel in terms of their stable production processes for polyamide and polyester. Furthermore, they comply with every high quality standard for airbags, which – as in the case of virtually all other textile products used in vehicle construction – must provide the highest level of safety for vehicle occupants, without any loss of function in any climate and anywhere in the world for the life-time of the vehicle.

Tensile forces

Seat belts meanwhile have to withstand tensile forces in excess of three tons and simultaneously stretch in a controlled manner in emergencies, in order to reduce the load in the event of impact. A seat belt comprises approximately 300 filament yarns, whose individual, high-tenacity yarn threads are spun from around 100 individual filaments.

“With our unique, patented single filament layer technology, we offer a sophisticated and simultaneously gentle high-tenacity yarn process for manufacturing these lifesavers and other applications made from industrial yarn,” said Dr Roy Dolmans, technology manager and head of R&D filament processing.

Low stretch, ultra-high tenacity and high rigidity industrial yarns also offer outstanding properties for the demanding tasks carried out by geotextiles, such as in geogrids for the base course system under asphalt.

Normally, geotextiles have extremely high yarn weights of up to 24,000 denier. Oerlikon Barmag system concepts simultaneously manufacture three filament yarns of 6,000 denier each. Due to the high spinning weight, fewer yarns can be plied together to the required strength in a more cost and energy-efficient manner.

HycuTEC

Oerlikon Neumag has meanwhile developed a new technology for charging nonwovens, the hycuTEC, that increases filter efficiency to more than 99.99%.

For meltblown producers, this means material savings of 30% with significantly superior filter performance and noticeably improved comfort due to significantly reduced breathing resistance for users. With its considerably lower water and energy consumption, this new development is also a future-proof, sustainable technology.

Technology centre

Oerlikon Neumag in Neumünster is now home to one of the world’s largest staple fibre technology centres, extending to around 2,100 square metres with a range of technologies available for customer-specific trials.

The focus during the planning and design of the technology centre was on optimising components and processes and special attention was paid to ensuring the process and production parameters could be simply and reliably transferred to production systems.

“We are not only able to run all standard products available on the market at but also offer the perfect prerequisites for the development of new processes and products,” said technology manager Tilman Reutter.

A fibre tape processing line, for example is modular in design and all components can be combined with each other as required, with comprehensive set-up options.

The technology centre is also equipped with two spinning lines for mono and bicomponent processes. The same round spin packs are used for both processes, characterised by excellent quality and properties and very successfully deployed in all Oerlikon Neumag production systems. The spinning plant is complemented by automation solutions such as spin pack scraper robots.

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