| 摘要 |
<p>An improved reinforced laminate for use in sails or other flexible sheet or membrane applications utilizes a pull-truded thin lightweight reinforcing sheet of unidirectional extruded monofilaments in which the reinforcing sheet or sheets (32, 34, 36) form one or more uni-tapes laminated to a polymer film (40) such as Mylar.RTM., or other extended sheet of material. The monofil- aments (38) are uniformly embedded in the uni-tape via an elastomeric polyme r matrix, with the reinforcing sheet, when in- corporated into sails via lamination resulting in sails with reinforcing monofilaments having diameters 5 times less than conventional strands or threads. The use of small diameter monofilaments greatly increases the monofilament-over-mono- filament crossover density, resulting in a dramatic increase in shear strength, and Young's Modulus, with an accompanying dramatic decrease in weight. In one embodiment the improvement in specific modulus over conventional sail laminates is about six-fold. For example, at only one-third the weight, stretch resistanc e is two times better. In a preferred embodiment, autoclaving is used in the lamination process to rid the laminate of voids which dramatically reduce shear strength by as much as 30 percent. Alternative void-free laminating processes include a siliconeinterliner/heated platen technique.</p> |
