Reinforcements
SPI stock a wide range of pre-impregnated reinforcements including:-

Fibreglass (E - glass)
- Woven Fabrics
- Uni-directional tapes

Carbon Fibre (Graphite)
- Woven Fabrics
- Uni-directional tapes

Aramid
- Woven Fabrics

Hybrid Systems
- Woven Aramid/Carbon Fibre Fabric

Other reinforcement materials are available through our network of suppliers located around the world.

Resin Systems
A number of high performance resin systems are available. The most commonly used systems being epoxy or polyester.

Different 'pre-preg' colours are also available. These are achieved by adding a colour pigment to the resin prior to the impregnation of the reinforcement material.

Standard colours available are:
Black, white, Blue, Mustard (honey), Yellow, Military Green.

Benefits of Pre-Preg Moulding
The benefits offered by pre-preg moulding are:-

- Excellent "flexural strength' properties
- Superior compression characteristics
- Exceptional tensile strength properties
- Superior corrosion/chemical resistance
- Consistent reinforcement to resin ratios
- High strength to weight ratios
- 1/4 of the weight of steel or brass (approx)
- 3/4 the weight of aluminium
- Electrically and thermally non-conductive
- Transparent to radio frequency radiation
- Strong lightweight parallel or tapered tube
- 'Short run' capability due to low tooling costs

Custom Work
SPI stocks an extensive range of tapered and parallel mandrels.

SPI is ideally suited to manufacturing product for custom applications. Custom composite tubes have provided solutions to many design problems.

The company is able to offer services including:-

Product Design
Materials and the method of construction are selected or developed to ensure that products meet the desired specification or application.

Mandrel Design and Manufacture
The company can design and oversee the preparation of mandrels to ensure product requirements are met in full.

Production Capabilities
SPI has the capability to produce tubes ranging in diameter from 5mm to 200mm. This tubing can be produced in a variety of lengths up to a maximum single length of 4.6 metres.

Tubes can be joined to form longer lengths utilising either external sleeving or internal spigots.

Adhesion to tubes can be easily achieved utilising 2 part epoxy adhesive systems.
SPI also has it's own 'centerless grinding' facility. This enables the outside of tubes to ground to tolerances of +/- 0.1mm. Lengths up to 2 metres can be centerless ground while the largest diameter that can be accommodated is approximately 100mm.

Independent Testing
If required SPI can arrange independent test reports of materials at specific thicknesses to ensure customer specifications are achieved. See an example of test results for a particular project in the past.