Civil & Environmental Engineering

Around 40,000 visitors from 113 countries attended Techtextil and Texprocess trade fair duo last week to find out about the latest innovations and trends. A total of 1,652 exhibitors from 56 nations presented their latest products and innovations. “Techtextil and Texprocess have once again set new records,” said Detlef Braun, member of the executive board of Messe Frankfurt, commenting on the results of the textile trade-fair double. “With an increase of 15% compared to the previous events, the two leading trade fairs confirmed the worldwide significance of technical textiles and textile-processing machinery”, he added. The events focusing on technical textiles combined various aspects of the industry from light to very heavy materials – from functional garments, via car seats and safety belts, to aircraft interiors.

The garment making-up industry has always been the labour-intensive ‘bottleneck’ of the conventional textile chain, despite attempts such as the Leapfrog EU7 project to streamline and automate all of its processes into a single-line system.

Belgium based leader in low pressure plasma technology Europlasma launched a new range of nanocoatings under the Nanofics 110 brand name. Referring to nanoscaled functionalization into the core of complex shaped materials and products, Nanofics is Europlasma’s patented and patent pending nanocoating technology platform, first applied on industrial scale in 1998.

Techtextil hits a record number of exhibitors as it is due to open on the 11 June, while the exhibition running alongside, Texprocess, has confirmed its position as the leading international trade fair for cutting-edge textile-processing technologies. The two international venues for the textile sector Techtextil and Texprocess are set to open their doors next week with 1,648 exhibitors, an increase of 123 exhibitors over the previous events. “All in all, our trade-fair duo at Frankfurt Fair and Exhibition Centre offers the world’s biggest range of technical textiles, nonwovens and textile-processing technologies”, said Detlef Braun, member of the executive board of Messe Frankfurt.

The geosynthetics market has grown massively over the past few decades, even during periods of uncertainty such as the recent global economic downturn, and industry analysts and manufacturers of geosynthetics expect growth to continue, according to a new report – Markets for geosynthetic products and profiles of five leading manufacturers - by the business information company Textiles Intelligence.

The American Association of Textile Chemists & Colorists (AATCC) is partnering with India based TecniTex Nonwovens to organise an international conference on “Advances in Fibres, Finishes, Technical Textiles and Nonwovens (AFFTTN)” in Mumbai. The event will take place from 1-2 October 2013. The conference is designed to provide excellent opportunities for international participants to discuss and interact. Highlighting the conference will be keynote presentations by eminent industry and academic leaders in each conference session.

Innovation in Textiles has just published ‘21st Century Innovations in Technical Textiles’ - a great new 36 page illustrated A5 sized booklet all about cutting edge technical textiles developments (RRP £25.00) - and we’ve got a limited number to give away FREE to visitors to our booth (D75, Hall 3.1) at Techtextil in Frankfurt (11-13 June).

Mike Hitchen, Commercial Manager of Sigmatex, which develops and manufactures carbon fibre textiles for composite material applications, recently announced the appointment of Jo Maltby to the position of Customer Services Manager. Jo has been with Sigmatex for over five years and brings a wealth of experience to the role due to her knowledge of the company and processes, her knowledge of the customer base and of the markets that the company serve. Jo is also central to the implementation of a Global cloud based operating system that company is developing that will provide an increased level of visibility and self service to the customer base.

New Eco-Applicator offering significant energy savings for a wide range of technical textile applications from A. Monforts Textilmaschinen will debut in June 2013 at the Techtextil exhibition, Frankfurt.

TenCate Geosynthetics Americas has developed a third patent pending geosynthetic for road and railway reinforcement, called TenCate Mirafi RS280i. The woven product completes the RSi series of geosynthetics for base reinforcement and subgrade stabilization.