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Reinforcing of plastics is quite common for thermoset
materials as well as thermoplastics including Engineering Thermoplastics.
Glass fiber is very commonly used and is possibly the largest consuming
reinforcement to achieve high modulus at higher temperatures. Other
fiber reinforcements such as Aramid, Carbon, High Modulus Polyethylene
and Boron have now achieved significant share of the total markets.
Interestingly, the price of Carbon fiber has reduced in the last
few years and is expected to go down further. It is therefore quite
possible that Carbon fiber will gain more market share. At the same
time Aramid and High Modulus PE fibers are expected to grow very
strongly in anti-ballistics composites required to protect personnel,
vehicles etc. On the other hand, glass fiber because of its large
volume, is expected to grow slowly. While the share of the thermoset
plastics is higher than thermoplastics, the growth of thermoplastics
in composite market is much faster. In some application segments
the thermoplastic composites have acheived more than 25-30% share.
Industrial application of the composite is growing quite rapidly
and is expected to achieve more than 60% share in the next few years.
On the other hand, the sports and leisure applications that earlier
showed tremendous opportunities, have slowed down.
More information of the market can be obtained from Fredonia, USA
or Materials Technology Publications UK the two leading marketing
research organizations that have been regularly studying the global
markets of fiber reinforcements.
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