Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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The present inventlon refers ~o a rire-safe
comp~site fibre product for use as tentered inner wall
cover, in suspended ceilings or the l~ke. The inventlon also
re~ers t~ a process ~or the preparati~n ~f such a ribre
product.
During the last ~ew years the building technlque
has ~een developed in such a way that interior ceiling and
wall covers are arranged as tentered layers Or materials
which are prefabricated in advance. Thus, at the present
time foil materials for mounting suspended ceillng~ or as
wall covers are used, and this new art results, o~ course,
ln ~ignificantly facilitated rationalization in ~inalizing
bulldings and also lowers the cost.
The requirements put on these types of building
materials are primarily that they shall possess a certain
stretchability, so that tentering or mounting ~s made
posslble to the formation of planar surfaces free from
wrinkles. Moreover, it is of course an essential requirement
that the product shows sufficient degree of fire-resistance,
J~
B 20 so that ~S in case of fire or other form of heatin4~is not
destroyed by fire or falls down in view of heat as smaller
or larger sheet~ thereby causlng different damages, such as
burns, on persons staying at the place on the occasion in
question.
Foil materials sf dirferent kinds are known,
particularly for use in suspended ceilings, and in the last
few years ~oil materials have been developed containing a
reinf~rcement of fire-resistant materials, for instance
glass fibres. However, it is in practice difficult to prepare
reinforced foil materials which fulfil the fire-safety
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requirements at the same time as they possess a sufficient stretch.
The present invention relates to providing a product useful for the
above purposes, the product inherently combining sufficient stretchability
and fire-resistance and being, moreover, possible to manufacture in a simple
and economical manner.
A material that seems to be able to fulfil said requirements would
be a knitted product madeof a reractory inorganic material, for instance
glass fibres. However, when trying to prepare such a product it is found
that the knitting is difficult to carry out with such a type of fibres and,
moreover, the final product does not allow handling in the usual way in view
of the low knot strength. Thus, this type of fibre product does not seem to
be possible to prepare and use in practice.
In accordance with the teaching of the instant invention it has now
surprisingly been found that a knitted fibre product having improved handling
characteristics and enabling manufacture in a simple manner can be prepared
starting from fibres of a fire-resistant and inorganic material in combina-
tion with fibres of an organic material.
The invention provides fire-resistant composite fibre product for
use as tentered inner-wall cover, as ceiling or the like, comprising a
knitted fibre product having a stretchability at about 5kp tensile stress
per 1000 mms linearly of at least about 2% and being composed of fibres of a
fire-resistant inorganic material and fibres of an organic material, the
product being such that the inorganic part and the organic part individually
form coherent stitches.
Even if the organic part of the product is relatively small from
the point of view of weight it has been found that the product may be knitted
in a conventional manner and that the material obtained can be handled with-
ou~ drawbacks in the form of rupture of the product.
From another aspect, the invention comprises a process for the
preparation of such a composite fibre product comprising knitting together
several warps of organic material and fire-resistant inorganic material. As
noted above, the inorganic part and the organic part thereof form coherent
, ~ stitches.
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This results in the favourable condition that on the one
hand~ even if there is a rupture in the inorganic material,
the fibre product is still coherent, whereas on the other
hand, ~f the organic part is destroyed, for instance by
heating, the fibre product also still is coherent. This
desirable characteristlc of the fibre product of the invention
may in principle be obtained in two different ways~ Firstly,
the product may be prepared from a thread composed of
desired fire-resistant inorganic material and organic fibre
material in combination. Secondly, the product may be
manufactured by co-knittingJ for instance by co-knitting of
at least two warps, one warp being constituted by inorganic
material and at least one further warp being constituted of
organic material. Both these ways of preparing the fibre
product result in a material, in which the inorganic part
and the organic part function independently of each other
to the formation of coherent stitches.
The proportion of fire-resistant material of
the fibre product of this invention is preferably about
20-99 per cent by weight. The upper limlt of this range may
; seem high, but from the point of view of volume the figure
99 per cent by weight corresponds to a significant proportion
of organic material. The inorganic fibre material may consist
of glass, carbon, boron, metal, etc. The organic part of the
fibre product may be based on synthetic fibres, for instance
polyester, polyamide, polyvinyl chloride, acrylic and poly-
urethane fibres.
The material according to the instant invention
may take the form of a fire-safe plastic or rubber foil
containing a reinforcement consisting of the fibre product
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described a~ove, 2n this case the re~n~orcement ma~ be cast into the foil
or co~laminated with the foi~l, In the latter case the lamin~te ma~ consist
of two plastic or rubber layers, between which the reinforce~ent is arranged,
In order to obtain weldabilit~, for instance by means of high frequent
current or of supersonic energy, of the ~re product of the invention when
present in an unlaminated state~ the product should contain at least about
65 per cent by weight of organic material, for instance a polyamide,
By using the fibre product according to the invention as sueh or in
laminated state when tentering inner walls or ceiling, the desirable state is
obtained that in case of fire or other heating the fire~resistant inorganic
part of the product remains intact and forms a remaining coherent layer
preventing the material from falling down in larger or smaller sheets,
The fibre material of the invention shows in view of the way of
preparation an essential stretchability enabling simplified tentering to the
formation of planar and even surfaces, The material should preferably be
stretchable in all directions, which i8 the case with preferred embodiments
of the product according to this inventlon,
The invention also refers to a process for the preparation of the
flbre product of the invention, and this process comprises knitting starting
from a fibre material composed of a fire.-resistant inorganic material and an
organic material, The knitting may be carried out starting from a composite
yarn as indicated or starting from several warps, of which at least one
consists of fibres of a fire~resistant inorganic material and at least one
of the others consists of fibres of an organic materlal~
The accompanying drawing illustrates, by way of example only, an
enlarged view of a composite fibre product in accordance with the invention,
The product is composed of glass fibres 2, and polyamide fibres 1, the latter
being coloured black to be distinguishable from the glass fibres, and each
- type of fibre forming coherent stitches,
The invention will in the following be further illustrated by non-
limiting examples.
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Example 1,
The present invent~on refe~s to a co~kn~tted p~duct, i.e, a warp
knit fabr~c, s~ita~ly ~or use in suspended ce~lings ~n laminated statel
namel~ a product o~tained ~ co~knitting o~ one warp Qf glass fi~res and one
warp of polyamide fibres, The stitching is carried out on a 14 ggs (gauges)
Kettenstuhl, of the type Karl Mayer AG (Germany West~ ~ binding double~knit
fabric Ll 10/12, L2 12/10 (L = guide bar),
The material of the warp for Ll constituting 92 per cent by weight
of the co-knitted product consists of glass fibres from Owens Corning (USA),
size 225 dTex (deciTex). The material of the warp for L2 constituting 8 per
cent by weight of the co-knitted product consists of polyamide Nylon 6.6,
1~ filaments, spinning textured yarn, from ICI (Great Britain), size 44 dTex.
The weight of the product obtained is about 100 g/m2 and the web
wldth is 1600 mms, After the stitching finishing in the form of washing and
setting is carried out.
The stretchability of the material is as follows:
Unlaminated product, lengthwise: >30% at a load of 5 kp/lOOQ mms
cross-wise: >30% at a load of 5 kp~1000 mms
Laminated product, lengthwise: about 2.5% at a load of 5 kpllOOO mms
cross-wise: about 2% at a load of 5 kp/1000 mms
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The lamination is carried out according to
example 4 below by means of plasticized PVC to a total
weight of about 300 g/m2.
Exam~le 2.
The present example refers to a co-knitted
product, i.e. a warp knit fabricJ suitable as a wall cover
and made of one warp of glass fibres and two warps of poly-
amide fibres. The stitching is carried out on a 200 ggs
Kettenstuhl, of the type Karl Mayer AG, and the bindings
were the following~
binding Ll 10/23
L2 12/10/23/10
L3 10/01
The warp for Ll constituting 74 per cent by
weight of the co-knitted product is based on 225 dTex glass
fibres from Owens Corning. The warps for L2 and L3
constituting 26 per cent by weight of the final product are
based on 110 dTex polyamide, Nylon 6.6, 34 ~ilaments,
untextured yarn from ICI.
The weight of the product obtained is about
270 g/m2 and the web width 2500 mms. After the stitching
finishing in the form of washing and setting is carrled out.
The stretchability of the material is as follows.
Uncoated product, length-wise. 30% at a load of 5 kp/1000 mms.
cross-wiseo 30~ at a load of 5 kp/1000 mms.
Example 3.
The present example refers to a co-knitted
product, i.e. a weft knit product, suitable as a wall cover
and prepared by plain knitting with plaiting while using a
doubled yarn composed of glass fibre thread and a polyamide
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thread according to Example 1. The plain stitching was
carried out on a single bed circular knitting machine of
the type Camber with ~6 systems.
The weft knit fabric obtained, constituted of
92 per cent of weight of glass fibre and 8 per cent by
weight of polyamide, possesses characteristics largely
corresponding to those of the warp knit fabric according
to Example 1. The way of stitching with plaiting, i.e. using
that the feature indicated above,
a yarn composed of glass fibres and polyamide fibresJ mean~/
that the inorganic part and the organic part function
independent o~ each other to the formation of coherent
stitches is obtained in an effective manner.
Example 4.
For lamination, the product of Example 1, 2 or
3 is combined with a plastic or rubber composition. A
plastic or rubber composition, for instance polyvinyl
chloride, is poured on a support which may be paper or
fabric and which is treated with a parting agent. The layer
obtained in this manner together with the support is passed
through a heating zone resulting in a stlcky surface, and
while the surface of the composition is sticky the knitted
product, i.e. a warp or weft knit fabric, is applied,
possibly under pressure, so as to form, after cooling, a
coherent laminate. Then the support is removed resulting
in a product in the form of a plastic or rubber-coated
elastic knit product suitable for use as cover material
for ceilings or walls. The stretchability of the material
is good due to the knitted reinforcement, and the combination
of inorganic and organic fibres results in characteristics
of the material which from all points of view are highly
:~049Z79
satisfactory. Thus, the content of inorganic fibres means
that the material, in case of fire or other heating,
remains in place without falling down in large sheets. The
stretchability enables the material to be tentered or
suspended in a simple manner while avoiding the forming of
wrinkles or ~olds.
