Bcomp to show technical flax fabrics at Composites Europe

Striking benefits of natural fibres:

Natural fibre composites have gained significant attention over the last couple of years. However, these novel materials struggle to establish themselves at a large scale in the composites industry, despite their outstanding specific mechanical properties. This is partly due to their short history with uncertainties regarding the natural fibre composite’s long-term behavior.

Since its founding in 2011, Bcomp has been focusing on understanding the specificity of natural fibers and their composites, and developing corresponding solutions bringing striking benefits – in addition to the lower ecological footprint – to the end product.

ampliTex  light range – world premiere at COMPOSITES EUROPE:

As technical textile, flax is a composite material, a source of inspiration to designers as they push the boundaries of contemporary furniture; used as a structural solution for new-generation goods. Bcomp as a natural fibre specialist is using the advantages of flax with its smart technologies in their materials for the production of highly performing skis and snowboards, ski poles, bicycle parts and frames, skate decks, car bodies, design parts and music instruments.

The strong need of the water sport and bike industry inspired us to develop the lightweight range. The ampliTex light products are made with a new low-twist yarn for a maximum performance. While regular natural fibre yarns have a high twist, thus a low surface coverage at a given weight, this tape-like flax roving allows the design of fabrics with a very low fabric areal weight.

When pressure is applied during processing, the fibres of the roving are further spread, filling the open space between the roving of the fabric. In addition, the low twist results in a great alignment of the fibres, increasing the strength of the final composite part by 10-20% vs. a part made from standard flax yarn.

These ampliTex light fabrics are ideal for replacing light glass fibre fabrics traditionally used in composites construction, cutting weight of the required reinforcement material by up to 50%. In combination with carbon composites, they offer a unique opportunity to simultaneously increase the strength and the damping properties.

Boosting the flexural stiffness:

The powerRibs technology (pat. pend.), a novel structural flax fibre composite boosting the flexural stiffness of plates and flexural strength of tubes. In both cases, the performance can be increased by up to 250%, while adding only 5-20% in weight vs. a standard flax fibre composite structure. Despite having a Young’s modulus significantly lower than carbon fibres, the density of flax fibres is about 30 % lower than the one of carbon.