Fibre-reinforced Plastic - History

History

Bakelite was the first fiber-reinforced plastic. Dr. Baekeland had originally set out to find a replacement for shellac (made from the excretion of lac beetles). Chemists had begun to recognize that many natural resins and fibres were polymers, and Baekeland investigated the reactions of phenol and formaldehyde. He first produced a soluble phenol-formaldehyde shellac called "Novolak" that never became a market success, then turned to developing a binder for asbestos which, at that time, was moulded with rubber. By controlling the pressure and temperature applied to phenol and formaldehyde, he found in 1905 he could produce his dreamed-of hard mouldable material (the world's first synthetic plastic): bakelite. He announced his invention at a meeting of the American Chemical Society on February 5, 1909.

The development of fiber reinforced plastic for commercial use was being extensively researched in the 1930s. In the UK, considerable research was undertaken by pioneers such as Norman de Bruyne. It was particularly of interest to the aviation industry.

Mass production of glass strands was accidentally discovered in 1932 when a researcher at Owens-Illinois accidentally directed a jet of compressed air at a stream of molten glass and produced fibers. Owens joined up with the Corning company in 1935 and the method was adapted by Owens Corning to produce its patented "Fiberglas" (one "s"). A suitable resin for combining the "Fiberglas" with a plastic was developed in 1936 by du Pont. The first ancestor of modern polyester resins is Cyanamid's of 1942. Peroxide curing systems were used by then.

Ray Greene of Owens Corning is credited with producing the first composite boat in 1937, but did not proceed further at the time due to the brittle nature of the plastic used. In 1939 Russia was reported to have constructed a passenger boat of plastic materials, and the United States a fuselage and wings of an aircraft. The first car to have a fibre-glass body was the 1946 Stout Scarab. Only one of this model was built.

The first fiber reinforced plastic plane fuselage was used on a modified Vultee BT-13A designated the XBT-16 based at Wright Field in late 1942. In 1943 further experiments were undertaken building structural aircraft parts from composite materials resulting in the first plane, a Vultee BT-15, with a GFRP fuselage, designated the XBT-19, being flown in 1944. A significant development in the tooling processes for GFRP components had been made by Republic Aviation Corporation in 1943.

Carbon fibre production began in the late 1950s and was used, though not widely, in British industry beginning in the early 1960s, aramid fibres were being produced around this time also, appearing first under the trade name Nomex by DuPont. Today each of these fibres is used widely in industry for any applications that require plastics with specific strength or elastic qualities. Glass fibres are the most common across all industries, although carbon fibre and carbon fibre aramid composites are widely found in aerospace, automotive and sporting good applications.

Global polymer production on the scale present today began in the mid 20th century, when low material and productions costs, new production technologies and new product categories combined to make polymer production economical. The industry finally matured in the late 1970s when world polymer production surpassed that of Steel, making polymers the ubiquitous material that it is today. Fibre reinforced plastics have been a significant aspect of this industry from the beginning. There are three important categories of fibre used in FRP, glass, carbon, and aramid.