Vectran™ Fiber Introduction

A Unique Combination of Properties For The Most Demanding Applications

Day in, and day out, whether at home or in the office, we are surrounded by products from the Kuraray group. This is because the specialty products which our company produces worldwide are primarily used as important constituents in building and coating materials and in adhesives, high-performance composites, home textiles and man-made leather, dental materials, carpets, in furniture finishes or in laminated safety glass.

An industry-leading textile fiber manufacturer, Kuraray has been providing innovative technical and industrial textile solutions for over 45 years.

Vectran™ is a high-performance multifilament yarn spun from liquid crystal polymer (LCP). Vectran™ is the only commercially available melt spun LCP fiber in the world. Vectran™ fiber exhibits exceptional strength and rigidity. Pound for pound Vectran™ fiber is five times stronger than steel and ten times stronger than aluminum.These unique properties characterize Vectran™:

• • High strength and modulus
• • Excellent creep resistance
• • High abrasion resistance
• • Excellent flex/fold characteristics
• • Minimal moisture absorption
• • Excellent chemical resistance
• • Low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE)
• • High dielectric strength
• • Outstanding cut resistance
• • Excellent property retention at high/low temperatures
• • Outstanding vibration damping characteristics
• • High impact resistance

Fiber Chemistry

Vectran®, a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) fiber, offers a balance of properties unmatched by other high performance fibers.This unique fiber's history spans 30 years of research and development in thermotropic (melt-processable) LCP's.

LCP polymer molecules are stiff, rod-like structures organized in ordered domains in the solid and melt states.These oriented domains lead to anisotropic behavior in the melt state, thus the term "liquid crystal polymer." Vectran™ fiber is formed by melt extrusion of the LCP through fine diameter capillaries, during which the molecular domains orient parallel to the fiber axis.The structure's high degree of orientation, illustrated schematically in Figure 1, translates to excellent fiber tensile properties.

Molecular Structure

The molecular structure of LCP, a wholly aromatic polyester, is shown in Figure 2.

With conventional polyesters, the molecular chains are random and flexible. Fibers spun from such materials must be further oriented, generally through a combination of extrusion speed and post-spin drawing, to obtain higher tensile properties.Vectran’s highly oriented structure is locked in directly during the meltspinning process, thanks to the molecular structure and liquid crystalline nature of the starting polymer.

Vectran™ is different from other high-performance fibers such as aramid and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (HMPE). Vectran™ fiber is thermotropic, it is melt-spun, and it melts at a high temperature. Aramid fiber is lyotropic, it is solvent-spun, and it does not melt at high temperature. HMPE fiber is gel-spun, and it melts at a low temperature.