US EPA

1494808 

Journal Article 

VECTRAN HIGH-PERFORMANCE FIBER 

Beers, DE; Ramirez, JE 

1990 

1 

Journal of the Textile Institute
ISSN: 0040-5000 

81 

4 

561-574 

English 

10.1080/00405009008658729 

WOS:A1990EY38900013 

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-0025097454&doi=10.1080%2f00405009008658729&partnerID=40&md5=67ee74376314b5e70fd3ed40407f731b
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Vectran fibre is a high-performance fibre produced from
Hoechst Celanese Vectra polymer. The Vectra family of liquid-crystal engineering resins was
commercialized in 1985 after more than fifteen years of research and development on naphthalene-
based thermotropic copolyesters. Since 1986, Hoechst Celanese and the Kuraray Company Ltd of
Japan have jointly evaluated these materials in fibre applications. The attributes of the Vectra
liquid-crystal polymer, such as excellent mechanical properties, property retention over a wide
range of temperatures, excellent chemical resistance, and low moisture absorption, are carried
over into the Vectran fibre. In addition, single-threadline evaluation confirmed by end-product
testing showed that Vectran had no measurable creep when loaded up to 50% of the breaking load
and excellent abrasion-resistance with an appropriate finish. Primary applications for the fibre
include ropes and cables, printed circuit boards, and thermoplastic composites. Since most of the
last-mentioned fibre-application development is still proprietary, this paper will focus on
results obtained from threadline and end-product testing for the rope and cable industry.