Do You Have An FRP Work We Can Help With?

FBC Principle for producing FRP panels

Clients: Panasonic Corporation, Kanto Industrial Co., Ltd., JC Corporation., Toprec Corporation.
Cooperation time: since 1991.
FRP panels Applications: Refrigerated cars, Motor homes, Fresh logistics transport compartment, Portable dwellings etc.

1. FRP panels problems and solutions (FBC Principle)

1.1 Flatness: How can we ensure the surface flatness of the fiberglass panels?

First of all, the customer needs the fiberglass reinforced panels with a pretty large dimension. They need the length to be 10 meters and the width to be 2.8 meters. The FRP molding during the hand layup process is not limited by the dimension and shape of the board. Thus, we choose the composite layup method to produce these easy to clean sheets. But how can we ensure the wall surfaces flatness and the accuracy of diagonal cutting? If the surface of reinforced panels is uneven, and the diagonal cutting is not accurate, it’s easy to have problems while using them. In general, the fiberglass reinforced panel is supposed to be easy to install and easy to clean. But if the wall surfaces are not flat, it will be pretty difficult to assemble. Also, there will be a large gap between building plates, and it will generate many repair works.

DOFRP specially customized a large cutting machine and a large grinding machine to produce the large dimension FRP wall panel. And these two machines are designed by the professional Japanese design team. The width of the fiberglass reinforced plate can be 3 meters. Also, it can ensure the thickness of FRP panels is even. By using these two machines, we can control the surface evenness within 0.3 mm, and control the diagonal cutting tolerance within 3 mm. As a result, it can meet the design requirements for diverse dimension fiberglass panels of a compartment and portable dwellings.

1.2 Bubble: How to control the flat wall surface without bubble?

There is any bubble on the surface of fiberglass reinforced plastic panels. It not only affects the appearance of the FRP wall panel. Also, it will cause the surface of the gel coat surface to crack and aging quickly after a long time using. To prevent the bubble of any existing wall surface, we have taken many measures.

First of all, we clean the fabrication platform before the manual process. There must be no obstacles. Otherwise, it will affect the FRP panel flatness and bubbles during the sheet fabrication.

Secondly, during the manufacturing process of the roofing panels of portable dwellings, we lay the cut film first, and cover with two layers of #04 platinum fabric. Pouring the adjusted type of polyester resin evenly over the top. Then, our skilled FRP workers scrape the polyester resin with a manufacturing tool to completely soak the two layers of #04 cloth. After there is no dry cloth, we completely drain the air bubbles inside.

Thirdly, if the bubble appears on the gel surface after the FRP mold release, we will take measures from the gel coat. On the one hand, if the viscosity of the gel coat is too thick, we can add a small amount of styrene. On the other hand, if the gelation time is too fast, we can reduce the amount of the accelerant.

1.3 Color: How to control the FRP color difference?

In general, there are four main reasons for the color difference of fiberglass reinforced panels. Firstly, the outmost yarns of sheets have several different angles. And it makes that the colors of FRP sheets look like different. Secondly, it’s about the dealing problem of the mold cavity. If some parts have polishing treatment, which makes it look like a mirror. While other parts don’t or you don’t clean the mold, they will make the FRP wall panel rough. In this case, we can carefully clean the FRP mold and polish the whole plate. Thirdly, there is a pressure difference. Maybe it is because you lay too many yarns. We can try to reduce the yarn on the side where the pressure is high or add yarns on the other sides.

Mr Zhou, who has 15 years experience in the composite industry, now is in charge of FRP panels. As he said:
“Molds of panels are pretty important. A good molding is half the battle. The larger the area of the FRP panel is, the more stringent the requirements of the molded fiberglass will be.”

Above all, the key to completely solve the color difference problem is controlling the raw material. Especially, you should take care when we produce the fiberglass roofing with a light color. When you use the different polyester resin with different heat endurance, it will have an obvious influence on the color of wall surfaces. You can’t ignore it. Yet, most FRP manufacturers like DOFRP, we don’t produce the fiberglass raw materials by ourselves. Therefore, we pay much attention to the production management and raw material inspection. We buy the raw material from the World Top 500 Corporation, such as ASHLAND, DSM, and BASF. Also, we strictly control the detection of each batch of FRP material. For the same fiberglass products, we try to use the material with the same supplier and the same number.

1.4 Other problems: Adhesive residue

Before the customers use the FRP wall panel, they need to tear off the protective film. Yet, they usually find that it’s easy to remain the adhesive. For one reason, it’s affected by the temperature change during the sea transportation. In this case, we specially customized the protective film, which dimension is larger than the fiberglass panels. Before the delivery of each batch, we conduct a low and high temperature experiment. It can prevent the fiberglass reinforced panels and the protection film from the influence of sea transportation.
For another reason, the peel strength changes as time goes by. There are many small holes on the wall surfaces that are hard to see with the naked eye. With the extension of time, pressure sensitive adhesive gradually permeate into space. In addition, when we attach the film, the touching area of the pressure sensitive adhesive and the FRP panels surface is not pretty large. Later, with the increasing of the contact area, the force between the film and the surface gradually increase. Both of these effects increase the peel strength over time. Thus, a good solution is placing an order before you need it, but not buy stocked reinforced panels.

2. DOFRP advantages

2.1 Stable production

The production capacity of DOFRP hand lay-up process can be up to 20,000 square meters. At the beginning of DOFRP in 1991, we mainly provided fiberglass roofing, fiberglass sheet, building panels, etc. Until now, we have 27 years of reinforced panels production experience.

Home Depot is the biggest home improvement supplies retailing company. It also provides plates for food processing and may have local stores in your place. But, the local store prices vary from those displayed online. In the company store, products shown as available are normally stocked but inventory levels cannot be guaranteed. However, the glass fiber reinforced plastic sheets we provide are not only used in kitchens restrooms, wall, and ceiling, but also in hospital rooms, cooling towers, and other building industry. Once the price is confirmed, we won’t easily change it. In addition, those fiberglass reinforced plastic FRP panels are recently produced. You don’t have to worry about the reduction of FRP panels’ service life.

2.2 Small tolerance and large dimension

DOFRP has a tolerance and dimension advantage compared with other rivals. On the one hand, fiberglass panels we make are easy to install, moisture resistant, stain resistant, and have chemical resistance. On the other hand, while the rivals can make the tolerance of FRP thickness be ±0.5 mm, we can make it be ±0.2 mm. And they can make the length and width of hand lay up panels be 6 meters and 2.6 meters. We can make them be 10 meters and 2.8 meters.

2.3 Advanced equipment

Last but not least, DOFRP has equipment advantages. We have a big heated housing, and use it during the wet weather. And it can help us to guarantee the fiberglass products quality and the customer’s delivery time. Also, at the beginning of the factory, we invested a lot of funds to buy a complete set of environmental protection equipment. Since 2017, the environmental policy and investigation of the Chinese government are becoming more and more strict. Many other FRP manufacturers in China have been shut down, DOFRP still provides FRP products for our customers as usual.