Airbags, safety belts, tire cord, geotextiles, safety ropes, conveyor belts – Oerlikon Barmag industrial yarns systems manufacture filament yarns for the most diverse applications.
Last year, the Remscheid-based systems manufacturer Oerlikon Barmag secured an above-average number of industrial yarns projects. The general trend was once again confirmed within the context of the ITMA Asia + CITME in October 2016.
This shows the sustainable success of the comprehensive range of innovative process solutions; offered for the entire industrial yarns product program. With its global network, Oerlikon Barmag is positioning itself as a leading partner; and a solutions provider of efficient ‘from-melt-to-yarn’ production processes.
The new systems that will be commissioned over this year are primarily focused on the Asian region; however, manufacturing industrial yarns is also interesting for producers in Europe; due to the comparably high margins and specialized areas of application. “We are experiencing huge demand for industrial yarn systems. Customers are asking for products that offer an interesting margin; such as specialties and industrial yarns, for example”, comments Oliver Lemke, Regional Sales Director at Oerlikon Barmag.
Stefan Becker, Senior Expert Research and Development, adds; “What has, for example, been very well received by our customers is that; our current machine concepts for industrial fine-titer nylon yarns allow us to offer configurations that are specifically tailored to the product requirements of the end application of these yarns; such as tents, tarpaulins, parachutes, etc. Here, the focus of the machine design is both on the product quality of the yarns in typical titer ranges of between 20 and 70 den and on production efficiency and, above all, on the optimization of the conversion costs.”
Industrial yarns, great coverage
The vast majority of the additional output of polyester and polyamide yarns will be deployed in the automotive sector (airbags, safety belts, tire cord). A further application area focuses on the broad spectrum of geotextiles and products for textile construction. And the continuing trend towards polyester yarns as a substitute for polyamide – prevalent among many product categories; such as airbags, for example – is being confirmed by Oerlikon Barmag’s projects. This is above all due to the constantly improving properties of polyester with simultaneously considerably lower raw material costs. Despite all this, the market for industrial yarns continues to diversify; and develop very much in line with the specific end applications. Here, the rising demand for so-called high-performance tires is resulting in both increased demand for PET HMLS yarns and in the greater output of PA66 yarns for use in cap ply.
Oerlikon Barmag offers flexible and product quality-oriented machine concepts; that efficiently cover these requirements with excellent conversion costs for all product categories. To this end, systems for manufacturing yarns for PET and PA airbags, tires and safety belts are successfully operating in the automotive sector; while there are also systems being used for textile applications such as upholstery and carpets. With this, the yarn production for all automotive sector applications can be covered by Oerlikon Barmag solutions.