With cable protection manufacturer PMA supplying crucial components
to wind turbines across the globe in 2010, polyamide-based products
are proven to exhibit excellent resistance to seawater.
Confirmed by PMA’s raw material suppliers, based upon the chemical
composition as well as a long-term application experience in the
toughest conditions, polyamide (or nylon) products have proved to
exhibit outstanding mechanical and physical properties over a wide
range of application temperatures.
Indeed, the manufacturer has seen a dramatic increase in the
popularity of its products, with profits up on last year. This has
been attributed to awareness of the benefits of using nylon cable
protection, such as its strength and flexibility, but also its
resilience against fungal decay, bad weather, rodents – and many
more factors which must be considered by engineers and designers in
a broad range of industries. Polyamide can therefore be used to make
products for both internal and external use, from explosive
environments to off-shore platforms and ships worldwide.
PMA’s Tony Hollands says: “Our polyamide products have been
subjected to extensive testing to show their suitability for a broad
range of application areas. As well as the various accelerated test
procedures, such as Xenon Arc UV radiation testing, we’ve also had a
long-term weathering test running at our manufacturing facilities
for over twenty-five years.
“We recommend the use of PMAFLEX type PCS (specially modified PA12)
for outdoor applications because of its excellent all-round
environmental characteristics, especially for dynamic applications
exposed to high UV radiation.”
Tony adds: “Perhaps the best indication of the suitability of nylon
(Polyamide 6 type) for applications exposed to seawater is the fact
that it is the material most commonly used for the manufacture of
fishing lines and nets.”
Traditional materials, including plastics, are often predisposed to
toughening or changes in their innate properties when exposed to
high or low temperatures or levels of moisture content, but in order
to provide consistent movement and flexibility, most PMA products
have been modified to make them immune to climate changes of this
kind. Given the difficulty in repairing off-shore turbines, this has
led to a rise in the number of off-shore applications using a more
reliable polyamide cable protection.
The material’s qualities have also rendered it suitable for
photovoltaic and geothermal installations, solar heating, power
generation, hydroelectric power stations and energy storage
facilities in the form of potential energy, water or air pressure,
showing that nylon is fast becoming the preferred choice of cable
protection for the power industry.
Over the last 12 months, Swiss company PMA has been active in
providing components for the wind industry in particular, producing
cable protection for American companies Clipper Windpower Inc. and
GE Energy, as well as Vestas Wind Systems of Denmark and Fabricom of
Belgium.
Wind has been one of the fastest-growing power sources worldwide for
the last twenty years, with an annual average growth rate exceeding
30% and with one newspaper recently predicting that by 2050,
offshore wind could provide all our energy needs, PMA looks set to
be crucial in the production line assembly.
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