The Office of the National Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters officially announced on July 1 that my country has entered the main flood season in an all-round way, flood control and drought relief in various places have entered a critical juncture, and flood control materials have entered a state of “warning” at the same time.
Comparing the flood control materials announced in previous years, it can be seen that woven bags, geotextiles, anti-filter materials, wooden stakes, iron wires, submersible pumps, etc. are still the main members of flood control materials. What is different from previous years is that this year, the proportion of geotextiles in flood control materials has reached 45%, which is the highest in the past years, and has become the most important “new helper” in flood control and drought relief work.
In fact, in addition to playing an important role in flood control work, in recent years, geotextile materials have also been successfully used in highways, railways, water conservancy, agriculture, bridges, ports, environmental engineering, industrial energy and other projects with their excellent properties. The Freedonia Group, a well-known market consulting agency in the United States, predicts that in view of the global demand for roads, building quality and environmental protection, as well as the expansion of other application fields, the global demand for geosynthetics will reach 5.2 billion square meters in 2017. In China, India, Russia and other places, a large number of infrastructures are planned and will be put into construction one after another. Coupled with the evolution of environmental protection regulations and building construction regulations, these emerging markets are expected to grow steadily in the next period of time. Among them, the demand in China Growth is expected to account for half of total global demand. Developed countries also have growth potential. In North America, for example, growth is mainly driven by new construction codes and environmental regulations, and is comparable in Western Europe and Japan.
According to a research report by market research company Transparency Market Research, the global geotextiles market will continue to grow at an annual growth rate of 10.3% in the next 4 years, and in 2018, the market value will increase to 600 million US dollars; The demand for geotextiles will increase to 3.398 billion square meters in 2018, and the compound annual growth rate will remain at 8.6% during the period. The development prospect can be described as “great”.
Global: The flower of application “blooms everywhere”
As the country with the largest consumption of geotextiles in the world, the United States currently has about 50 large-scale geosynthetics manufacturing companies in the market. In 2013, the United States promulgated the MAP-21 Transportation Act, which can meet the relevant technical requirements for transportation infrastructure construction and geographic management. According to the Act, the government will allocate 105 billion US dollars to improve the ground transportation facilities in the United States. Mr. Ramkumar Sheshadri, visiting professor of the American Nonwovens Industry Association, pointed out that although the federal government’s interstate highway plan will have an impact on the pavement market in September 2014 is still unknown, but it is certain that the US geosynthetics market will be in the market. In 2014, it achieved a growth rate of 40%. Mr. Ramkumar Sheshadri also predicted that in the next 5 to 7 years, the US geosynthetics market may generate sales of 3 million to 3.5 million US dollars.
In the Arab region, road construction and soil erosion control engineering are the two largest application areas of geotextiles, and the demand for geotextiles for soil erosion control is expected to grow at an annual rate of 7.9%. This year’s new “Geotextiles and Geogrids Development in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)” report pointed out that with the increase in construction projects, the geotextiles market in the UAE and GCC jurisdictions It will reach 101 million US dollars, and it is expected to exceed 200 million US dollars by 2019; in terms of quantity, the amount of geotechnical materials used in 2019 will reach 86.8 million square meters.
At the same time, the Indian government is planning to build a 20-kilometer national highway, which will stimulate the government to invest 2.5 billion yuan in geotechnical industrial products; the Brazilian and Russian governments have also recently announced that they will build wider roads, which will be more efficient for industrial geotechnical products. The demand for materials will show a linear upward trend; the improvement of China’s infrastructure is also in full swing in 2014.
Domestic: “a bag of baskets” of unsolved problems
Under the promotion of policies, our country’s geosynthetics products already have a certain foundation, but there are still “bags of big and small problems” such as serious low-level repetition, lack of attention to product development and internal and external market research.
Wang Ran, a professor at the School of Science and Engineering of Nanjing University, pointed out in an interview that the development of the geotextile industry is inseparable from the government’s policy guidance and promotion. In contrast, the overall technical level of the industry is still at a relatively low stage. For example, the geotextile industry in developed countries such as Japan and the United States will invest a lot of manpower and material resources in engineering design and climate basic experiments, and conduct a series of basic research on the impact of atmospheric environment on products and the side effects of marine environment on products. The work has provided basic research guarantees for the improvement of the quality and technical content of subsequent products, but my country has very little research and investment in this area. In addition, the quality of conventional products still needs to be improved, and there is still a lot of room for improvement in processing technology.
In addition to the hardware is not “hard” enough, the software support has not kept up. For example, the lack of standards is one of the biggest problems in the development of my country’s geotextile industry. Foreign countries have established a more comprehensive, complete and subdivided standard system according to different product raw materials, application fields, functions, processing techniques, etc., and they are still being updated and revised. In comparison, my country lags a lot in this regard. The currently established standards mainly include three parts: application technical specifications, product standards and test standards. The test standards for geosynthetics used are mainly formulated with reference to ISO and ASTM standards.
Present: “Communication diligently” in geotechnical construction
To develop is actually not difficult. According to the data surveyed by China Industrial Textiles Industry Association, my country’s geotechnical industry is facing a good external environment: first, the state continues to increase investment in transportation infrastructure, and water conservancy investment has also grown steadily, providing stable customers for the industry; second, The company actively explores the environmental engineering market, and the company’s orders are relatively full throughout the year. The environmental protection industry has become a new growth point for geotechnical materials. Third, with the growth of my country’s foreign contracted engineering projects, my country’s geotechnical materials have gone abroad to support many large-scale projects.
Zhang Hualin, general manager of Yangtze River Estuary Waterway Construction Co., Ltd., believes that geotextiles have a promising market prospect in my country, and are even considered to be the largest potential market in the world. Zhang Hualin pointed out that geosynthetic materials involve construction, water conservancy, textile and other fields, and various industries should maintain regular information communication, increase the intensity of collaborative development of geosynthetic products, and make product design and development for different industries, Different engineering conditions service. At the same time, non-woven geotextile manufacturers should further expand the development of related projects, and provide corresponding supporting materials for downstream purchasing companies through cooperation with upstream companies, so that products can be better used in projects.
In addition, the necessary testing is the monitoring of product quality and engineering quality, and is also responsible for people’s property. Inspecting project quality and ensuring construction safety is an important part of engineering application. After years of practical testing, it has been found that the product and engineering characteristics of geosynthetics can be understood through laboratory testing or field testing of geosynthetics, and then the correct design parameters can be determined. The detection indicators of geosynthetics are generally divided into physical performance indicators, mechanical performance indicators, hydraulic performance indicators, durability performance indicators, and interaction indicators between geosynthetics and soil. With the wider use of geotextiles in engineering construction and the application of advanced testing methods, my country’s testing standards should also be continuously improved.
Are the upstream and downstream connections ready?
Enterprise says
User concerns about improving product quality
In foreign infrastructure projects, the proportion of industrial industrial fabrics has reached 50%, while the current domestic proportion is only 16% to 17%. The obvious gap also shows the huge development space in China. However, the choice of domestic equipment or imported equipment has always made many industrial enterprises entangled.
We admit that at the beginning, when faced with doubts about the practicability of domestic equipment by industrial enterprises, it was indeed “false”, but it is precisely because of these doubts that we actively improve, and now not only has the price of equipment is 1/3 of that of foreign imported equipment , the quality of the heavy-duty fabrics produced is close to or even better than that of foreign countries. It is undeniable that although our country is slightly behind in the development of fine products, the domestic level has reached the first-class level in the field of industrial fabrics.
Shijiazhuang Textile Machinery Co., Ltd., as the largest manufacturing base of special looms for industrial textiles in China, mainly produces wide polyester mesh looms, multi-layer belt looms for industrial mining, and ultra-wide geotextile looms. Today, the company strives to build the only flat three-way fabric production enterprise in China with the help of the GCMT2500 spiral umbrella CNC machining center and flat three-way loom that are being developed and trial-produced, thereby entering the military industry and contributing to my country’s national defense industry.
Although the batch of production equipment of the company is not large, the variety is rich, and it can be customized for different industries. The equipment produced by our own can also achieve good stability, and overcome the problem of not being able to stop at any time, reducing the risk of defects in the millet. Among them, the flat three-way loom can not only increase the tear strength of the product, but also The warp and weft strengths of the product are increased at the same time. □ Hou Jianming (Deputy General Manager of Shijiazhuang Textile Machinery Co., Ltd.)
The low level of technology cannot be ignored
my country’s geotextiles will continue to grow by double digits in the next 15 years, including water conservancy construction, South-to-North water transfer projects, as well as projects such as ports, rivers, lakes and seas, and sand control. The investment is expected to reach one trillion yuan.
Taking the Yangtze River Estuary Waterway Project as an example, the entire Yangtze River Estuary Waterway project requires 30 million square meters of geotextiles. The first phase of the project with an investment of 3.25 billion yuan has already used 7 million square meters of various geotextiles. From the perspective of supply, more than 230 geotextile production enterprises and more than 300 production lines have emerged across the country, with an annual production capacity of more than 500 million square meters, which can meet a certain degree of demand in all aspects. On the one hand, it is an attractive market potential, and on the other hand, it is a ready-made supply guarantee. As a new type of building material with strong vitality and spanning multiple industries, geotextiles are more urgent in my country today when expanding domestic demand and increasing infrastructure construction. realistic meaning.
However, at present, my country’s non-woven geomaterials still have the problem of single product variety and mismatched supply, and some special special materials lack research and production. In key projects, due to the shortage of varieties or poor quality, it is still necessary to import a large number of high-quality geotextiles from abroad. In addition, many fiber raw material manufacturers and geotextile manufacturers maintain a parallel and independent processing mode, which greatly limits the quality and profit development of geotextiles. At the same time, how to improve the quality of the whole project and reduce a lot of maintenance costs in the later period is also an issue that cannot be ignored. In my opinion, the end application of geotextiles requires the perfect cooperation within the entire industry chain, and the linkage production from raw materials, equipment to final products can bring a complete solution to this industry. □ Zhang Hualin (General Manager of Shandong Tianhai New Material Engineering Co., Ltd.)
Experts say
Special looms fill the domestic gap
Taking Shijiazhuang Textile Machinery Company as an example, during the site visit, we saw a heavy-duty special loom in operation. Its width is over 15 meters, the fabric width is 12.8 meters, the weft insertion rate is 900 rpm, and the beating force is 3 tons. / m, can be equipped with 16 to 24 heald frames, the weft density can be increased or decreased from 1200 / 10cm. Such a large loom is also a forming mesh rapier loom integrating machine, electricity, gas, liquid and light. It is the first time for us to see it and feel very happy. These special looms not only fill the domestic gap, but also export overseas.
It is very important for production enterprises to choose the right direction of production. You should do your best according to your own situation, do your best, and take your social responsibilities very prudently. To run a factory well, the key is not to have a large number of personnel, but to have a team that is very close and united. □ Wu Yongsheng (Senior Consultant of China Textile Machinery Industry Association)
Standard specifications should be stepped up
In the next 10 years or more in my country, there will be more infrastructure projects to be constructed, and the demand for geotextiles will also increase. Civil engineering construction has a huge potential market, and China will become the largest marketing market for geosynthetics in the world.
Geotextiles are environmentally friendly products. The global awakening of environmental awareness has increased the demand for geomembranes and other industrial synthetic materials, because the use of these materials has little impact on nature and does not cause much harm to the earth’s environment. Relevant departments attach great importance to the application and development of geosynthetic materials. The state will spend 720 billion yuan to complete the construction of six major infrastructures within three years. At the same time, the product standards, test method standard design, and construction technical specifications of geosynthetic materials should also be followed in succession. The introduction can create favorable conditions for the development and application of geosynthetics. □ Zhang Ming (Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University)
Global Trends
Geotextiles for highways and railways also take the road of “intelligence”
The global leader in geotextiles, Royal Dutch TenCate, recently announced the development of the TenCate Mirafi RS280i, a smart geotextile for road and rail reinforcement. The product combines high modulus, dielectric constant, separation and excellent interfacial synergy, and has now entered the patent review period. TenCate Mirafi RS280i is the third and last product in TenCate’s RSi product series. The other two are TenCate Mirafi RS580i and TenCate Mirafi RS380i. The former has high engineering and high strength, and is mainly used for base reinforcement and soft ground. Robust, with high water permeability and soil water holding capacity; the latter is lighter than the RS580i and is an economical solution for areas with less stringent road reinforcement requirements.
In addition, the “Vertical Sand Resistant Geotextile” developed by Tencate won the “Water Innovation Award 2013″, which is considered to be an unparalleled innovative concept, especially suitable for the special geographical environment of the Netherlands. Vertical sand fixation geotextiles are an innovative solution to prevent the formation of ducts. The basic principle is that the filter unit of the textile only allows water to pass through, but not sand. Utilize the barrier properties of geotextiles to form pipes on the polder, so as to ensure that the sand and soil remain under the embankment to avoid causing the embankment to burst. According to reports, this solution stems from Tencate’s Geotube geotube bag system. Combining this with Tencate’s GeoDetect sensing technology promises to be more cost-effective while enhancing the levee. TenCate GeoDetect R is the world’s first intelligent geotextile system. This system can give early warnings of deformation of the soil structure.
The application of optical fiber to geotextiles can also give it some special functions.
Post time: Sep-22-2022