Fiberglass post from “DD Fiberglass“, May 10th, 2009.

AR fiberglass mesh are mainly used in expansion polyphenyl, adhesive polystyrene granule and so on polymers for thin-plastering exterior wall and exterior insulation system to reinforce the buildings insulating layer anti-crack property, make sure the insulating layer won’t get damaged when the outside mortar split off. So, AR fiberglass mesh quality is very important to building insulation.

Good AR fiberglass mesh has 3 poperties:

• Alkaline resistance,
• Good breaking strength,
• Fracture strain.

Alkaline resistance is the most important property. Because without good alkaline resistance property, large breaking strength will decrease fastly in concrete, couldnot play the role to crack resistance. Affect fiberglass mesh alkaline resistance performance are the glass type and gel coating. In the market, fiberglass mesh quality is irregularity, fake commodities, inferior sells as superior phenomenon worries  a lot of people.

Fake fiberglass mesh glass type are as follows:

1. Fiberglass produced from A-glass cullet via earthen crucible, this fiberglass yarn has low strength and no alkaline resistance property, and it is not allowed to produce by China law rules.
2. Fiberglass produced from glass marble via earthen crucible, this type fiberglass is brittle, and filament diameter change greatly, so it also has no good breaking strength.
3. Twist the listed two fiberglass together or twist the earthen crucible produced fiberglass with good platinum crucible fiberglass together, this make it hard to distinguish bad from good.

But with a alkaline resistance property test, we will soon see the difference. The poor quality fiberglass mesh don’t reach the standard.

Excerpt from the glass fiber’s quality, fiberglass mesh alkaline resistent proerty also need good gel coatings. Especially for C-glass fiber mesh, their alkaline resistance property are mainly come from gel coatings. So we need alkaline resistence gel  and enough thickness coatings. Good gel need good raw materials (mainly using styrene or acrylate), auxiliary materials also need pay large attention to for make sure gel emulsion has good cross-link, anti-water and alkaline resistance. Bad gel use vinyl acetate as raw materials, and added exccessive alkaline or silane materials for good operating in coating, but reduced alkaline resistance a lot.

Good fiberglass mesh needs low fracture strain and high breaking strength to control fracture, it also needs flexibility property to improve anti-seismic and anti-fracture property. Fiberglass filament diameter larger than 13 um has low breaking strength, bad flexibility, easy to broken. Poor quality or earthen crucible fiberglass filament diameter are larger than 15 um, these fiberglass woven mesh has bad climate-resistance, ice-resistance and fracture-resistance. In the building insulation projects, we need use good quality fiberglass mesh to ensure the insulating layer service time.