Wedoany.com Report on Mar 2nd, James Cropper Advanced Materials has recently launched the Vectis platform, an innovative system designed for industrial-scale aligned fibre composites. It aims to address the long-standing industry challenge: achieving efficient fibre alignment for discontinuous non-woven materials in commercial production.
By integrating with existing non-woven manufacturing facilities, the Vectis platform enables the scaled-up production of aligned fibre materials. It can process aligned fibre composites with widths up to 1,200 mm and areal densities ranging from 20 to 200 g/m², overcoming the bottleneck of commercialising technologies that are difficult to scale beyond laboratory or pilot stages.
Utilising the Vectis platform, the company produces Unimat aligned non-woven fibre mats. This material is suitable for downstream composite manufacturing, can be combined with resin systems, and is compatible with various processes such as prepreg lay-up, compression moulding, stamping, resin transfer moulding, and autoclave processing.
Unimat demonstrates an alignment level of nearly 95% in aligned fibre composites while maintaining excellent formability, adapting to complex geometries without wrinkling or distortion. It supports various fibre forms, including recycled carbon fibre, post-industrial waste, virgin carbon fibre, glass fibre, and hybrid blends, contributing to increased fibre volume fraction.
Tom Sharrock, Sales Director at James Cropper, stated: "The alignment of discontinuous fibres has been demonstrated many times at a small scale, but industrialisation has been the key gap. The Vectis platform supports commercial composite projects by enabling the production of aligned non-woven materials at an industrial scale, and Unimat embodies this capability."
Dr. Mandy Clement, Director of Innovation at James Cropper, said: "This technology has been in development for over a decade. By combining expertise in fibre behaviour with non-woven manufacturing technology, we have created a platform that opens new pathways for aligned composites across multiple application areas."
Unimat aligned fibre composites, supported by the Vectis platform, have been applied in sectors such as aerospace interiors, advanced air mobility, automotive, and sports equipment, meeting the demand for lightweight, high-performance materials and circular material strategies. The company will showcase Vectis and Unimat at the JEC World exhibition, highlighting collaborative progress with industry partners.
