Within the Bio-Uptake project, Centexbel has successfully developed low-shrinkage, high-strength PLA yarns, addressing a key challenge in bio-based composite manufacturing.

🔎 Why is this important?
Shrinkage is a critical property for thermoplastic yarns. Excessive shrinkage during processing can generate internal stresses and deformation in composite structures, even bending production frames during manufacturing, as can be seen on the picture.

To overcome this issue, a dedicated development strategy was implemented to simultaneously:
✅ Reduce yarn shrinkage
✅ Increase mechanical strength (tenacity)


📊 Results achieved within Bio-Uptake:
- Shrinkage reduced from 20% (standard PLA) to 8%
- Tenacity increased from 35 cN/tex to 50 cN/tex

This dual improvement is particularly significant, as lowering shrinkage often comes at the expense of mechanical performance. Here, both parameters were enhanced simultaneously.

The development of these optimized PLA yarns strengthens the reliability of bio-based textile reinforcements and facilitates their integration into high-performance composite applications.

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