NV BEKAERT SA

Antenna for use in an RFID tag, said antenna having a core, a metal wire or cable, and a protective sleeve, wherein said core contains textile made from polymer or organic materials, said metal wire or cable is spiralled or helixed around said antenna core in Z or S direction to form a composite structure, and said protective sleeve is made by one or more wrapped layers around said composite structure, and said protective sleeve contains textile made from polymer or organic materials.

It is provided a method and device to control the thickness of a metallic coating on a steel wire. A device ( 101 ) for controlling a metallic coating thickness on a steel wire comprises: —a digital proportional valve ( 113 ); —a digital flow meter ( 111 ); —a pressure sensor ( 115 ); —a thickness sensor ( 105 ); —a gas nozzle ( 119 ); —a computer ( 107 ); and is characterized in that the relation between the gas flow measured by said digital flow meter ( 111 ) and the coating thickness measured by said thickness sensor ( 105 ) for said gas nozzle ( 119 ) is linear or parabolic.

A method for restoring superconductivity of a wire having a core of reacted MgB 2 comprises subjecting said wire to a two-phase heat treatment, wherein a first phase comprises heating in a range of 800° C. to 1000° C. during 20 minutes to 40 minutes and a second phase comprises heating in a range of 550° C. to 750° C. during 45 minutes to 75 minutes.

A magnesiumdiboride (MgB 2 ) powder-in-tube (PIT) wire has a cross-section showing —voids, —magnesiumdiboride, and —oxides, as measured by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Oxides are located at the borders between the voids and the magnesiumdiboride. The MgB 2 PIT wire has a higher degree of superconductivity.

A method of measuring content of a first chemical element in a coating comprising the first element applied on a substrate also comprising the first element, the content of said the element being determined by measuring the ratio of the content of a second chemical element over the content of the first element in the coating and the ratio of the content of the second element over the content of the first element in the substrate, whereby the content of the first element both in the coating and in the substrate is different than the content of the second element both in the coating and in the substrate and the ratio of the content of a second element over the content of the first element in the coating is different from the ratio of the content of the second element over the content of the first element in the substrate.

The invention provides a steel cord with a construction of n×1, n is the number of the steel filaments of the steel cord, the steel cord has an elongation at 2.5N-50N of less than 1.2% and a twist pitch of greater than 16 mm, each of the steel filaments has a form of helical wave with a wave length L expressed in mm and a wave height H expressed in mm when being unravelled from said steel cord, L is greater than 16 mm, each of the steel filaments has a space volume Vs satisfying that, Vs=L×H 2 ×π/4, and Vs>20 mm 3 . The invention steel cord is beneficial for the stress distribution.

The invention provides a steel cord, the steel cord comprises two or more steel filaments, at least one of the steel filaments has a twist pitch of 6 mm to 40 mm, each of the steel filaments has a tip rise of less than 5 mm with a gauge length of 200 mm after being unravelled out of the steel cord. The invention steel cord has an improved straightness with reduced steel filament fracture risk.

It is provided a method and device to control the thickness of a metallic coating on a steel wire. A device ( 101 ) for controlling a metallic coating thickness on a steel wire comprises:—a digital proportional valve ( 113 ); —a digital flow meter ( 111 ); —a pressure sensor ( 115 ); —a thickness sensor ( 105 ); —a gas nozzle ( 119 ); —a computer ( 107 ); and is characterized in that the relation between the gas flow measured by said digital flow meter ( 111 ) and the coating thickness measured by said thickness sensor ( 105 ) for said gas nozzle ( 119 ) is linear or parabolic.

A steel cord with a construction of m+n having a first group of core filaments having a number of m and a second group of sheath filaments having a number of n, the second group and the first group are twisted around each other with the same twist pitch and same twist direction, wherein the core filaments are not twisted with each other, the core filaments are parallel or have a twist pitch being more than 300 mm, and the sheath filaments have a twist pitch being less than or equal to 30 mm, the core filaments have an average tensile strength Tc in MPa when being un-ravelled from said steel cord, the sheath filaments have an average tensile strength Ts in MPa when being un-ravelled from said steel cord, Tc and Ts satisfy: 5<(Tc−Ts)<200. The steel cord has high breaking load and high production efficiency without cost increase.

A steel cord for rubber reinforcement that has a construction with an outer layer and an inner strand surrounded by and adjacent to the outer layer, the inner strand having at least one steel filament with a number of N 1 and an average diameter of d 1 expressed in mm, the outer layer having steel filaments with a number of N 2 and an average diameter of d 2 expressed in mm. The inner strand has a torque T 1 and the outer layer has a torque T 2 , the relation between T 1 and T 2 is defined. By doing this, the tip rise problem of the rubber ply reinforced by steel cords is reduced.