SAERTEX LEO^® combines high mechanical performance with fire safety and environmental protection requirements

There are some field of application where low weight and excellent mechanical properties are not sufficient in themselves: Standard fibre-reinforced composite parts always reach their limits in situations where fire safety standards are particularly strict. The offshore industry, marine market, public construction and mass transportation sectors provide just a few examples of this.

There are some field of application where low weight and excellent mechanical properties are not sufficient in themselves: Standard fibre-reinforced composite parts always reach their limits in situations where fire safety standards are particularly strict. The offshore industry, marine market, public construction and mass transportation sectors provide just a few examples of this.


The new generation SAERTEX LEO® composite system closes this gap: As the first product of its type, SAERTEX LEO® is proven to offer the highest levels of fire safety (IMO FTP, Part 2, Part 5) in addition to excellent mechanical performance. At the same time SAERTEX LEO® is non-poisonous – both during processing and when fire breaks out. With SAERTEX LEO®, flame propagation is reduced. Smoke emissions in case of fire are reduced by a factor of 57 when SAERTEX LEO® is used.


What’s behind the phenomenal properties of SAERTEX LEO®?


SAERTEX LEO® was developed in Germany. SAERTEX, one of the global market leaders in the manufacture of non-crimp fabrics (NCFs), has bundled its competencies gained in the areas of non-crimp fabric manufacture, BÜFA Composite Systems and the production of special resin products. The result is an impressive lightweight – a unique composite system. Depending upon customers’ requirements and the field of application of the parts, the SAERTEX LEO® system employs different core materials together with optimised NCF layers and resins. All of the LEO® components are chemically and physically matched to ensure that the best possible results are achieved. The final protection layer provides the finishing touch that actually gives the product its unique fire rating.

In addition to the fire safety standards required in certain applications, SAERTEX LEO® also delivers the properties that are so typical of fibre-reinforced composite materials: High part stiffness and low weight. This means that in order to achieve prescribed mechanical properties, significantly less material is required when using SAERTEX LEO®, bringing a corresponding reduction in cost. Because SAERTEX LEO® employs infusion technology; personnel costs for part manufacture are also significantly lower than with hand lay-up process. Neither are there any time-consuming pauses for the intermediate curing of individual layers. The use of infusion technology ensures a consistently high level of part quality and short production times – which in turn translates into maximum economy.