Fiberglass

If you think about the term "fiberglass", you probably are thinking about that fluffy stuff in your attic. Or maybe you are familiar with swimming pools made out of fiberglass. Fiberglass is used in many different pultrusion, auto, and marine applications today.

Fiberglass can be used as a reinforcement for plastics. After the product is complete, a composite material is produced. This composite material is generally known as FRP (fiber-reinforced polymer) or GRP (glass-reinforced plastic). Some people often refer to it as "fiberglass cloth" or "fiberglass mat." And some derivative fiberglass products are referred to as "fiberglass fabrics."

Glass fibers have been around for centuries, but commerical scale fiberglass wasn't produced until the introduction of modern machinery and manufacturing facilities. Modern day fiberglass, was invented in the 20th century by Owens-Corning as an insulation product for different types of building and residences. Fiberglass is sold under the trade name Fiberglass which was originally trademarked but has seemed to become a generic term fiberglass in general.

When talking about fiberglass, people are generally referring to 2 different entities. One is fiberglass mat (like what is used in boatbuilding) and the other is insulation (found in buildings). Wind turbine manufacturing is one of the more popular uses of fiberglass mat today. This wind power market has has been rapidly expanding in the last decade.

Using glass fibers in textiles has been a fairly recent industrial application. And by "fairly recent", I mean within the last 100 years. In fact, fiberglass wasn't commercially produced until 1936. Many people credit the companies that formed Owens Corning as the companies that many people think began large scale fiberglass production.

Besides Owens Corning, fiberglass is manufactured by several other companies including many in China. As with many industries, China appears to have become a fiberglass manufacturing exporting center.

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Fiberglass. (2007, April 1). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:57, April 4, 2007, from

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