Adhesion Technologies Ltd. fastening system designed for FRP parts

Adhesion Technologies Ltd.’s (ATL; Lymington Hampshire, U.K.) Fiba Spida is an all-in-one fastener and tow-steered reinforcement fabric fixing system, designed primarily for boosting productivity and design freedom with fiber-reinforcement polymer (FRP) composites.

The system is based on ATL’s Spida fixings and proprietary adhesion enhancing technologies. The Fiba Spida fixings are said to enable applied stresses to be spread across a larger part of the substrate, so smaller and fewer fixings can be specified in some applications in order to reduce the overall weight of an assembled component. The new range of Fiba Spida fixings, with glass and carbon fiber options, are intended to offer design, productivity, production, cost reducing and performance enhancing benefits, suited for applications in the rail, mining, automotive, marine, medical equipment and industrial market sectors.

Fiba Spida combines ATL’s Spida stud and parabolic base fixing system and patented AdMax base surface area enhancing treatment with a new “tow-steered” technology. The tow steering production system avoids cutting the glass or carbon fibers by guiding the fiber tows around either a metal- or plastic-threaded Spida bolt/stud, maintaining the maximum reinforcement strength from the fibers. Next, injection of a compatible resin encapsulates the Spida bolt/studand locks in the glass or carbon fiber fabric option to produce the final Fiba Spida fixing; depending on the application, either a single or double fabric layer for interleaving can be produced. The overall result is a high-performance “hybrid” fixing system with a built-in quadraxial fabric reinforcement system, said to handle high tensile and torsional loads as point loads and cluster stresses in the fabricated component are dissipated over a wider area.

Fiba Spida fixings are supplied fully assembled and are suitable for new build components or for upgrading fixing requirements as part of a maintenance, repair or refurbishment project. Fiba Spida has been designed so that a fixing can be quickly and accurately positioned in a mold during the dry layup pre-molding stage without additional preparation. Alternatively, it can be bonded or overlaminated to the surface of an existing molded part needing fixings. 

This product has been applied to a variety of applications, can be used with various fabrics and materials, and continues to undergo tensile strength and other performance tests.

ATL’s products are mainly used by OEMs and Tier 1 industrial companies, but are also sold via trade and retail outlets for new build, repair, maintenance and self-build DIY projects.