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.
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