New Fibremod™ GE313IM brings greater design freedom and production efficiency to complex pipe components
With the launch of Fibremod™ GE313IM, we are expanding our portfolio of glass-fiber reinforced polypropylene solutions to help customers manufacture increasingly complex components efficiently, without compromising on the strength and performance their applications demand. Developed with a particular focus on injection-molded components for pipe systems and valves, the new grade combines high flowability with strong mechanical performance and opens opportunities in other demanding applications, including white goods.
Responding to the challenge of increasingly complex components
Across water management and industrial pipe systems, the demands placed on individual components continue to evolve. Valves and other functional parts can incorporate small, intricate geometries that need to be filled reliably during injection molding, while at the same time meeting demanding requirements for strength, stiffness and dimensional stability.
For manufacturers, this creates a balancing act: they need materials that flow well enough to enable complex component designs, yet still deliver the robust performance expected throughout the application’s service life.
This is the challenge we set out to address with Fibremod™ GE313IM.
Turning customer needs into a new solution
The development of Fibremod GE313IM brought together our expertise across product development, application marketing, technical service, sales and compounding. By combining insights from customer applications with our materials and processing know-how, we identified an opportunity to improve processability while maintaining the strong mechanical properties needed for demanding injection-molded components.
The result is a polypropylene (PP) compound reinforced with 30% short glass fibers and designed especially for applications involving complex geometries. Its high flowability allows the material to fill small and intricate shapes more easily, giving designers greater freedom when developing components such as industrial valves, internal functional valve parts and complex pipe-system components.
Making complex production easier
What makes Fibremod GE313IM particularly valuable is not one property alone, but the combination of processability, production efficiency and performance.
Its high flowability supports efficient mold filling and can help reduce processing resistance, tool abrasion and associated maintenance requirements. At the same time, its high crystallization temperature supports efficient injection molding and increased production output.
Once in use, the material provides the stiffness and strength required for demanding applications, together with dimensional stability at elevated service temperatures. Fibremod GE313IM is also heat and detergent stabilized and is supplied in natural color, making it well suited to applications where coloring is required.
From pipe systems to white goods
For customers operating internationally across applications ranging from pipe systems to white goods and small appliances, another benefit is simplicity. The grade meets global food-contact requirements, helping customers reduce material complexity by using a single grade across multiple markets where the relevant requirements apply.
While pipe and valve solutions are a key focus for Fibremod GE313IM, its combination of high flowability, mechanical strength, heat resistance and design flexibility also makes the grade relevant for other demanding injection-molded applications.
These include white goods and small appliances, where manufacturers often need to produce functional components with complex geometries while maintaining stiffness, dimensional stability and reliable performance. For suitable components used in household appliances, the material’s heat and detergent stabilization can provide additional advantages.
In this way, Fibremod GE313IM offers customers a versatile material solution that can support different application areas while addressing a common need: making sophisticated component designs easier and more efficient to produce.
Creating new possibilities together
The launch of Fibremod GE313IM demonstrates how we translate real application and processing challenges into practical material solutions.
By listening to our customers and bringing together expertise from across our teams, we have developed a grade that helps manufacturers design more freely, process more efficiently and achieve the performance their applications require.
As components become more sophisticated and manufacturers look for new ways to improve productivity and optimize production, we see significant potential to explore where Fibremod GE313IM can create further value together with our customers.