JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #50 - July/August 2009 - 24

BUSINESS Market survey …… / Wood-plastic composites – markets, applications and performance costs share today. In Japan, half of all WPC is used in exterior construction applications such as decking (75%) and louvers and fences (20%). The other half is used in interiors. Today’s global WPC product trends are towards maximized product quality at minimized costs. Price-performance ratios are taken into account, and aesthetics are becoming more and more an issue when marketing WPC products. The developments in solid deck boards and engineered hollow profiles are leading the industry to the next (third) generation of WPC applications for the construction market. Given the material’s tendency to creep, we can expect future developments mainly in the field of reinforced materials. Focus About Cincinnati Extrusion As one of the leading suppliers of complete extrusion systems, Cincinnati Extrusion takes an active role in the growing worldwide fibreFiberexA 135: high performance in WPC extrusion. composites market. In keeping with its motto, “Leading innovations”, the extruder specialist is committed to continuous innovation and focuses on cutting-edge technology and energy efficiency. Its global network of subsidiaries, representative offices and agents ensures direct contact with its customers everywhere. Cincinnati already has 180 Fiberex lines installed worldwide, so it was able to draw on its experience when designing its latest extruder model for the production of wood-plastic composites. It recently presented the Fiberex twin-vent A135-37D, its first parallel, counter-rotating twin-screw extruder for the WPC market, extending its range of conical machines with this particularly powerful parallel model. three-dimensional layout of Tech-Wood’s modular housing system. Determination of performance costs based on material indices Fig. 3: Three-dimensional layout of Tech-Wood’s modular housing system. Tech-Wood Int. Ltd, a UK-based licensor that specializes in oriented long fibre reinforced wood fibre plastic composites (WFC), recently adopted a new approach to applications based on fibre-reinforced materials. Under the brand name “Simply Housing”, the company started marketing modular housing kits based on its patented enhanced-stiffness WFC material. According to Tech-Wood Int., a 6,000-7,000 MPa modulus of elasticity can be achieved with the standard formulation (approximately 75% fibre content). Additional carbon fibre or metal reinforcement maximizes stiffness to 10,000-12,000 MPa. The price for an 85 m2, three-bedroom house is below $30,000. The first series of low-cost houses are about to be installed in Europe and the USA. Figure 3 shows a As said before, today’s industry is looking for products offering maximized performance at minimized costs. The following technical analysis focuses on the performance costs of WPC for decking use versus competing materials such as commodity plastics and selected types of wood. The selected types of materials are compared in terms of flexural modulus of elasticity (stiffness) and cost per unit mass. The main purpose is to find out whether WPC, in their most established outdoor applications, will be able to outperform competitive building materials. Figure 4 compares three WPC materials commercialized in North America with commodity plastics (HD-PE, PP PVC and , PS) and several types of wood (larch, mahogany, Fig. 4: Modulus of elasticity plotted against price per unit mass of commodity plastics, selected types of wood and three commercial types pine and teak). Values of WPC (marked red). for WPC are in red. Stiff materials that are cheap lie towards the top left. All materials that lie on a line of constant perform equally well as a cheap stiff beam (mechanically speaking, a decking board represents a beam loaded in bending). The chart shows the outstanding position of teak and mahogany pricewise, as well as the best performance of longitudinally measured larch and pine. Due to the fact that they share a line of constant , transversally loaded types of larch and pine and WPC seem to perform equally well. 24 jec composites magazine / No50 July-August 2009

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #50 - July/August 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #50 - July/August 2009