Advantages, both in sport and leisure sector as well as in landscaping come to fruition, are the reduced expenditures for care and repairs compared to natural grass, from which particularly benefit the municipalities.
The „blades" of the artificial turf composed of tapes (slit films) or of monofilaments (endlessly produced single fibres). Currently these "tape" dominates the market, which is tufted in a special weaving process. In the next few years the monofilament will replace the tape more and more. Advantage of the monofilament is the same buckling strength in all directions and thus an "isotropic" ball behaviour towards the tape.
The materials used here:
| Polyamide (PA): | Hockey, Landscaping, Golf, American Football |
| Polyethylene (PE): | Soccer, American Football |
| Polypropylene (PP): | Soccer, American Football |
PA has the advantage of the high bend recovery by water absorption, but a very bad coefficient of friction to the skin. PE, especially linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), has a very good coefficient of friction to the skin, but a bad bend recovery. PP has a coefficient of friction to the skin that is slightly worse than LLDPE but better than PA and a bend recovery which is slightly better than PE but much worse than PA. In landscaping only PA will be used, as PE and PP even at 80°C lose their strength. PA is used up to a temperature of 120°C.
However, with increasing use the requirements on the artificial turf increase more and more, such as the properties antifungal, antibiotic and flame retardant. Another problem, especially in the area of landscaping in very hot regions, is the heating up of the artificial turf. At a temperature of 40°C in the shade the artificial turf easily reach a temperature of 70°C up to 80°C, which is too high for applications in the leisure sector. An additional cooling effect due to the innovative layered structure is thus an equally desirable goal.
The combination of required mandatory application properties can therefore be produced only by an innovative design. For example, in the sport sector it is required that the artificial turf has the following properties: identical rolling motion in all directions, a good bend recovery, but also a favourable sliding behaviour during falls, not to burn the skin of the athletes.
Here REIMOTEC is the world leader with a new process concept. The requirements are achieved through an innovative multi layered structure with different layer materials.
New directions in the field of premium artificial turf
The production or the spinning of two-layer-monofilaments or bicomponent-filaments of two different thermoplastic polymers is generally known. However, many bicomponent-filaments have the disadvantage that the two layers (core and shell) do not link enough to each other and thus delaminate during the stretching-process. For this reason REIMOTEC has been overcome the disadvantages and limitations by the use of an adhesive layer thus the introduction of a tricomponent technology. Completely new material combinations with new property profiles are used to occur (for example LLDPE in the outer layer for good sliding-quality and a PA-core for a high bend recovery). These developments of REIMOTEC are a good starting condition to achieve the artificial turf requirements in the future.| TriCo die |
| Microscope sectional view |
Ambition for the future: nano technology
However, the possibilities of a multilayer structure with different well-known plastics will soon be exhausted. The nano technology is considered as a key technology that could increase compact the potential capacity even of artificial turf.As important, not so far realized features have been identified antifungal, antibiotic and flame retardant. The aspired functionalization will be met through the use of nano particles in various layers. The advantage of the layer-integration in comparison to the application of an additional outer layer is also the required durability as subsequently applied systems can be easily rubbed off.
The use of nano particles at multi-component-spinning of artificial turf monofilaments is so far unknown and represents a novelty.
Non-polluting artificial turf systems
New developments in the field of artificial turf systems are designed to dispense on the stuffing of the turf carpet with filling materials such as synthetic granules or sand, or restrict to a minimum. The reason for this development is environmental aspects because in 2005 the use of rubber tire material for the purpose of filling with the relevant polluting aspects was made public.A new generation of grass-yarn-carpets consists of texturized and smooth monofilaments. The use of the texturized yarns allows the resignation or the reduction of infill-materials like synthetic granules or sand.
The texturizing of the monofilaments can be performed directly in-line during the monofilament-production or offline in a second operation. At the texturizing the turf fibre is permanently structured. Here you get more volume in the turf and a better utilization of the fibre length.
Current plant designs allow the production of two-colour yarns in one operation. The possible combination of different colours, different monofilament cross-sections and also filament thickness allows the production of grass-carpets, which are making the grade, that are placed on the different types of artificial turf for the applications
- sport facilities
- landscaping and
- leasure and wellness
| Smooth yarn |
| Texturized yarn |
| Turf-carpet without infill |
Applications of artificial turf
| Soccer |
| Landscaping |
| Golf-Greens |
Performance spectrum of the artificial turf monofilament line:
| output up to | 400 kg/h |
| raw materials: | PA PE-LLD PE-LD PE-HD PP |
| working width: | 400 up to 1200 mm |
| number of the filament: | variable |
| velocity: | up to 500 m/min |
- one- and two-colour extrusion
- inline- or offline texturizing