Focus on the textile world: from DIY to road building

The "Go West" strategy – new roads, railways and airport

Short planning phases and very quick completion of infrastructure projects have contributed to China now being the second-largest economy in the world. The expansion of infrastructure can hardly keep up with the pace of this growth. The East is the engine of the country's economic growth, but the West also occupies an important role in the plans of the Chinese government: with the so-called "Go West" strategy, even sparsely populated regions are now being provided with infrastructure. This is now on a level with Europe in China's coastal provinces, while in recent years the infrastructure in the twelve central provinces has only been gradually increased.

Currently there are around 500 airports in China. In comparison with the USA, where the number of airports and airfields is over 13,000, China has a lot of catching up to do. The Chinese government noticed this long ago, however, and the plan is to build an average of 20 new airports each year until 2035.

A choice based on diverse requirements

In most cases, fabrics or nonwovens are not uniquely assigned to any of these purposes, although the differences between geotextiles consisting of fabrics and those consisting of nonwovens can sometimes be considerable. For example, a geotextile made from carded fibers would have to weigh three to five times as much in order to achieve the tensile strength of a fabric. Fabric, on the other hand, is often incapable of economically fulfilling the requirements posed by water absorption and filtration.

Spun or carded fiber

Geotextiles made from nonwovens

Looking more closely at nonwoven geotextiles, two main groups can be distinguished here too: Geotextiles made of spun fibers and geotextiles made from carded spun fibers. Both products are usually in a weight range from 350 gsm to 2200 gsm. In general, the spunbond geotextiles are slightly more economical to produce, with manufacturing costs usually around 10% lower than those of comparable geotextiles made from carded spun fibers. The reason for this is the lower cost of raw materials (fibers are more expensive than resin) and the fact that spunbond geotextiles generally have a lower weight. Here too, neither production method is assigned to any one geotextile task.

Advantages of spunbond:

• Weight reduction = less use of raw materials
• Resin is a cheaper raw material – about 30% cheaper than fiber

• High investment costs
• High operating costs
• Low flexibility, for example in relation to the fiber fineness

Usually, a carded nonwoven fabric can for instance be made with a fiber fineness of 1-110 dtex. With a spunbond, the manufacturer is typically limited to products of 1-10 dtex.

Competitive benefits thanks to Groz-Beckert

In view of upcoming major investments, it is likely that acceptance criteria for geotextiles in China will be far stricter in the future, and that there will be cross-regional, uniform requirements. Demands placed on the stability of manufacturers' production processes will also increase significantly. A consolidation of the market is to be expected, and the companies with a stable production process are the ones who will become market leaders.

In their respective sectors, the market leaders worldwide make almost exclusive use of needles from Groz-Beckert. Thanks to their advantageous properties in terms of process reliability, wear and tear, and robustness, Groz-Beckert needles offer competitive advantages that secure this superiority in the geotextiles market.

Meanwhile Groz-Beckert itself has been able to expand its position as the world's leading manufacturer both in terms of quality and quantity. Continuous further development of products in the felting sector, enabling even more precision, durability and efficiency, has made this competitive edge possible.