Glass Fibre-Reinforced Plastic is commonly referred to as “Glass fibre” , is main variety of polymer composites. It has better impact resistance than plastics. It is light in weight, has a high mechanical strength and is corrosion resistant. The scientific name of fiber glass is Glass Fibre-Reinforced Plastic. It is a composite material which uses glass fibers and their products(glass cloth, tape, felt, and yarn etc) as reinforcing material and uses synthetic resin as basis material. The concept of composite material is that a material can not meet the requirements of use and it needs to be made of two or more materials to make up another material that meet people’s needs. For example: Although single glass fibre has a high strength but the fibers are loose and can only withstand tension but not bending, contraction and shear stress. It is not easy to make a fixed geometry and is an loose object. If you glue the single fiber glass together with synthetic resins, it can be made into various hard products with fixed shapes. It can withstand both tensile stress and bending, contraction and shear stress. This constitutes glass fiber reinforced plastic matrix composites. Because of its strength equivalent to steel, it also contains glass components, it also has glass-like color, shape, corrosion resistance, electric insulation, heat insulation and other properties, historically, the popular name “ Glass Fiber Steel” came into being. This term was put forward by Comrade Lai Jifa, former Minister of Construction Material Industry in 1958, was spread from construction material system to the whole nation and is still widely used. Thus it can be seen that the meaning of glass fibre steel refers to fiber glass as reinforced material and reinforced plastics using synthetic resin as binder, called glass fiber reinforced plastics abroad.
With the development of Glass Fiber Steel industry in China, as reinforcement material for plastic base, It has expanded from fiberglass to carbon fibers, boron fiber, aramid fiber, alumina fiber, silicon carbide fibre. Undoubtedly, reinforced plastics made of these new fibers is some high performance fiber reinforced composites. It is impossible to generalize with the common name of glass fiber steel.
Considering the Origin and Development of History glass fiber reinforced plastics (GRP) composites are usually used. Such a name is more comprehensive.
Use: GRP as a new engineering material, because it has some outstanding excellent performances, so from cutting-edge technology to all sectors of the national economy It has broad application prospects. Furthermore, with the development of production technology the application of GRP will be more and more extensive. During the World War II, Glassfiber reinforced plastics are mainly used in the manufacture of various military supplies and weapons such as small quantities of military supplies such as GRP radar cover and aircraft fuel tank. After the World War II, GRP products began to develop toward civilian use such as GRP flowerpot, GRP yachts, cars, bathtubs etc. Several years later, the application of GRP in military industry is increasing such as components on military supplies such as military vehicles, crafts, bullet proof equipment, aircraft, rockets, missle, submarines etc.
Many countries(such as UK, France, Germany, Japan etc) used GRP products widely successively in airplane, missle, shipping, transportation, architecture, petrochemical industry and other fields.