What Fiberglass is Used in

Fiberglass (as known as Fiberglass), an excellent sound and thermal insulator, is commonly used in buildings, plumbing and appliances. Due to its properties of additional strength and electrically resistant to molded plastic products, glass filaments and yarns are used in pleasure boat hulls, automobile body parts and in variety of electronic consumer products. Fiberglass also finds its application as electrical insulators and as reinforcing belts in automobile tires.

What Fiberglass is Made of

Fiberglass is made of extremely fine fibers of glass. Due to its property of reinforcement, it is used as a reinforcing agent for many polymer products and is also known as fiber-reinforced polymer or glass-reinforced plastic. Fiberglass came was invented in 1938 by Russell Games Slayter and was initially used for insulation. The formation of the fiberglass takes place when thin strands of silica glass are forced into many fibers with small diameters.

Fiberglassing

As SiO2 is the base of textile grade fibers, it exists as a polymer in its pure state (SiO2)n. Though it has no true melting point but softens at 2000 degrees celsius and then starts to degrade. At this high temperature most of the molecules begin to move about freely. The glass is then made to cool quickly and is unable to gain an ordered structure forming SiO4 groups which gets configured as the tetrahedron with the silicon atoms at the centre and the four oxygen atoms. They thus form a bonded network at corners by sharing the oxygen atom.

In terms of the property, fiberglass has a high ratio of surface area to weight, which makes it much more susceptible to chemical attack. Blocks of fiberglass trap air within them and thus make it a good thermal insulator having a thermal conductivity of the order of 0.05 W/(mK). As glass and fiber have almost similar properties, they have an amorphous structure too. The freshest, thinnest fibers are the strongest as they are more ductile. But humidity is an important factor in tensile strength. As the moisture can be easily absorbed, it can disorder the microscopic cracks and surface defects and thus lessen the tenacity of the fiberglass.

Therefore, all these properties make a fiberglass much more useful in our daily lives. Fiberglass in recent time is used in mats, thermal insulators, reinforcement of different materials, tent poles, heat and corrosion resistant fabrics, sound absorption devices, arrows, bows and crossbows, automobile body parts, boat hulls, in high strength fabrics and for medical purposes in casts.