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West System Reinforcing Materials

Reinforcing Materials

Enhance Epoxy’s Performance with Reinforcing Materials

Reinforcing fabrics and tapes increase tensile strength, and resist hairline cracks and abrasion, greatly improving the longevity of an epoxy laminate. WEST SYSTEM offers unidirectional tapes, glass tapes, biaxial tapes, glass fabrics and biaxial fabrics as reinforcing materials for building composite laminates and selectively reinforcing structures.

Fiber orientation is important in determining a laminate’s strength and stiffness. Select the type of weave and orient the fibers to best address the direction of the loads within the structure. It’s easier to figure out what the load direction will be for some structures than it is for others. For example, we’d expect a simple cantilevered beam to be exposed to tension on the top and compression on the bottom, with the loads passing in one direction. Therefore, a uni-directional fabric would be appropriate. Structures that may be exposed to less predictable loads may be better off with a woven reinforcing material that will address loads in multiple directions.