According to the estimates provided by Business Wire, the demand for airbags will increase by 5% annually over the next five years. To date, airbags have been predominantly manufactured using polyamide 6.6 yarns. However, there is a noticeable trend with these challenging industrial filament yarns towards polyester, Oerlikon reports.

Industrial yarn producers are increasingly perceiving the airbag yarn segment as a growth market. To this end, four projects for manufacturing airbag yarns from PA6.6 and PET, supplied by the Swiss systems builder Oerlikon Barmag, have been successfully commissioned in the past 12 months.

Systems concept

The systems by Oerlikon Barmag – installed at well-known yarn manufacturers in North America and China – cover titer ranges of between 235 and 700 dtex for PA6.6, and between 470 and 550 dtex for PET.

According to the manufacturer, the systems concept offers the highest level of flexibility: the SP4 spinning system with exchangeable melt distribution enables the conversion of the airbag yarn systems from PA6.6 to PET or vice-versa without much effort. To this end, yarn producers can react flexibly and swiftly to changing market requirements, the company reports.

Market with growth potential

The reason for the increased demand for airbag yarns is the global rise of road safety requirements, the company explains. Within this context, the Indian government and the Department of Road Transport and Highways, for example, have revised their vehicle safety rules and regulations. The new version, which comes into force in the fall of 2017, demands considerably greater occupant safety, particularly with regards to side and front impact. According to the estimates of numerous automobile manufacturers, compliance with these new safety rules and regulations can only be achieved with the installation of airbags.

According to research conducted by PCI, greater safety in vehicles is also a much-discussed topic in Latin America, which is having a positive impact on the airbag and safety belt manufacturing industry: two South Korean airbag producers have already announced investments in Central America.

Oerlikon Manmade Fibers

With its Oerlikon Barmag and Oerlikon Neumag brands, Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment is the market leader in manmade fibre filament spinning systems, texturing machines, BCF systems, staple fibre systems, nonwovens and artificial turf systems and – as a service provider – offers engineering solutions for the entire textile value added chain.

The research and development at this division of the Oerlikon Group is driven by energy-efficiency and sustainable technologies. With the expansion of the product range to include polycondensation systems and their key components, the company now caters to the entire process – from the monomer all the way through to the textured yarn.

The primary Oerlikon Barmag markets are in Asia, and – for Oerlikon Neumag – in the USA, Turkey and China. Correspondingly, Oerlikon Barmag and Oerlikon Neumag – with just under 2,500 employees – has a presence in 120 countries as part of the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers network of production, sales and distribution and service organizations.

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