Basalt Fiber (BF) is a continuous fiber made of pure natural basalt material, crushed and added to the furnace, melted at 1450℃～1500℃ at high temperature, and drawn by platinum rhodium alloy wire drawing high speed . The diameter of basalt fiber produced by the existing process can reach 6~13μm, which is thinner than the hair.
Basalt fiber was first produced by Paul Dhe of France in 1923. During World War II, the technology was vigorously developed by the United States, Europe and the former Soviet Union, and was widely used in the military and aerospace fields. In 1995, with the technology decryption, basalt fiber technology was greatly promoted in the civilian field.
According to statistics, the global basalt fiber market will reach USD 227 million in 2019, and it is expected to exceed USD 250 million by 2020. The compound annual growth rate of the global basalt fiber market from 2017 to 2020 will exceed 15%.
Main application areas
Basalt fiber is now one of the four major fibers (basalt fiber, carbon fiber, aramid fiber, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber) developed in China. Various products made from basalt fiber are widely used in defense military, aerospace, In the fields of fire protection, environmental protection, vehicle and ship manufacturing, petrochemical, power electronics, sports, medical and civil engineering, the following is a brief description of several main application areas.
01, stealth
Basalt fiber has the characteristics of high strength and high and low temperature resistance, which is very in line with the requirements of aircraft and missile surface materials. At the same time, it has the characteristics of wave absorption and magnetic permeability, which can achieve radar stealth. Therefore, basalt carbon fiber can partially replace carbon fiber for stealth aircraft and missiles.
02, body armor
At present, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers are usually used for bulletproof vests, which have low heat resistance, and the strength and modulus will be reduced under high temperature melting of the bullet, which will affect the bulletproof effect. In contrast, basalt fiber has a high temperature resistance, so this problem does not exist.
03, Aerospace
Basalt fiber has low thermal conductivity and good flame retardant performance. The operating temperature range is -269℃~700℃, which is resistant to both high and low temperatures. To meet the stringent requirements for materials in the aerospace field, most of Russia's aerospace materials are made of this material.
04, automotive applications
●Friction enhancing materials
Basalt chopped fiber has the characteristics of stable high-temperature friction coefficient, low thermal decay and low braking noise. It is suitable as the main reinforcement material of friction materials. This material is beneficial to solve the "heat decay" phenomenon of traditional automobile brakes, and thus reduce the occurrence of traffic accidents.
●Car filter material
Basalt fiber automobile filter materials can separate solid particles in automobile exhaust under high temperature conditions, which can reduce urban pollution from automobile exhaust, and its filter materials have the advantage of maintaining stable performance under high temperature conditions.
●Car interior materials
At present, the more widely used interior materials generally have problems such as insufficient strength, gases that are volatile and harmful to the human body when heated, and vibration damping, heat insulation, and poor sound absorption performance. Compared with glass fibers that are widely used in interior materials, The sound absorption and heat resistance of basalt fiber is much greater than that of E-glass fiber, which is more in line with the requirements of high rigidity, light weight, flame retardant, low cost and no environmental pollution.
●Car dashboard
The basalt fiber composite material is used to make soft automobile instrument panel framework with high strength, high elastic modulus, better fluidity, impact resistance, fatigue resistance, corrosion resistance, short production cycle, high production efficiency, and easy implementation of complex parts. forming. At the same time, the design thickness of the instrument panel can also be reduced accordingly, and the quality is relatively reduced, generally about 25%.
●Car front bracket
The front-end bracket made of basalt fiber-reinforced PP material by integral plastic molding has corrosion resistance, impact resistance, good dimensional stability and high mechanical properties, and the weight loss is up to 20% to 40%. At present, all major independent brand car companies are actively researching and developing, making it one of the main raw materials for the automotive industry, especially for the use of heavier vehicles.
●Car body
The strength and stiffness of basalt are sufficient to meet the needs of the car body structure, and it has good anti-collision performance while reducing the weight of the car.
05. Road engineering
Basalt fiber has the advantages of high tensile strength, good mechanical properties, high temperature resistance, UV protection, acid resistance, alkali resistance, salt resistance, and aging resistance. Compared with other fibers, its comprehensive performance is better, and it also meets the requirements for materials in the field of road engineering. Therefore, in recent years, more and more basalt fiber products have been used in road engineering.
The basalt fiber is made into a mesh substrate through a warp knitting process, and can be made into a basalt fiber geogrid by surface coating treatment. It is usually used for asphalt pavement reinforcement, reinforcing roadbed and soft soil foundation; chopped basalt fiber can be used for asphalt mixing Materials, cement concrete and crushed stone seal; basalt fiber composite reinforcement is mainly used for cement concrete pavement in the field of road engineering.
Basalt fiber will be used for space exploration
ACMA (American Composites Manufacturers Association) helps American Space Exploration Technology (SpaceX) in space exploration. ACMA said that the successfully launched rockets, especially the "Heavy Falcon" launch vehicle, used composite materials in their manufacture, which provided new opportunities for many space exploration startups.
Peter Hedger Jr., Chairman of the ACMA High Performance Council, said: "With the decline in the price of carbon fiber and the increased use of advanced materials such as basalt fiber and carbon fiber, more and more companies have broken the technical barriers to space exploration."
Therefore, the "Heavy Falcon" launch vehicle is not just using composite materials on the fairing. The middle section connecting the upper and lower sections of the rocket is a composite material structure with an aluminum honeycomb core material and a carbon fiber sheet surface layer.
ACMA has previously introduced the US Mid-Mountain Materials, which produces basalt fiber insulation materials for aerospace solutions. In addition, the international research team has developed self-healing fiber-reinforced composite materials that can be used in sub-zero temperature space applications.
Driverless basalt fiber electric bus tested in Russia
In 2019, the Russian Innovation Center Skolkovo established a high-tech center for testing driverless vehicles. The center demonstrated the functions of the second-generation electric vehicle NAMI-KAMAZ 1221 SHATL. The driverless bus can accommodate 12 passengers, and is equipped with a visual system, navigation equipment and downloadable maps. It takes only 50 minutes to fully charge the vehicle battery, and it can run 120 kilometers after being fully charged. Aleksey Guskov, director of the SSC RF FSUE NAMI department and integrated project center, said that the body is designed from an integrally molded basalt fiber composite frame.
In order to meet the increasing demand for lightweight and innovative materials from automobiles, Henkel opened a composite testing center in Asia. In the future, more and more innovative materials will be used in the automobile manufacturing industry.
Basalt fiber composite design wins NASA 3D printed habitat challenge
In 2019, AI SpaceFactory (New York, USA) became the winner of the NASA 3D Printing Habitat Challenge because it built MARSHA, a 3D printed basalt fiber composite structure for Mars inhabitation.
This 15-foot-high prototype was 3D printed at the final stage of the competition and is made of a biopolymer basalt fiber composite material that is biodegradable, recyclable, and derived from natural materials on the surface of Mars. The material passed NASA’s pressure, smoke and impact tests and was found to be stronger and stronger than the concrete used by the other 60 competitors in the challenge. In a highly automated process, the habitat was printed within 30 hours, and the three windows in the structure were also placed by the robot. AI SpaceFactory was awarded a prize of USD 500,000 by NASA for this competition.
AI SpaceFactory spent two years developing these construction technologies for Mars, and plans to recycle the materials from MARSHA to 3D printed TERA, which is an ecological habitat of space technology used on Earth and is said to be the first of its kind.