Pultrusion profiles: innovation transforming the industry.

October 31, 2025

What is Pultrusion and Why It’s Revolutionizing Profile Manufacturing

Pultrusion is an industrial manufacturing technique increasingly used in sectors that demand strong, durable, and lightweight materials. In essence, it’s a continuous process that creates reinforced profiles — most often using fiberglass — by pulling fibers through a heated mold.

But what exactly is pultrusion? Imagine a system where fibers such as glass or carbon are impregnated with resin and continuously drawn through a mold that shapes and solidifies them. This is how pultruded profiles are made — valued for their stability, strength, and adaptability.

How the Pultrusion Process Works

The pultrusion process is simpler than it seems, yet highly technical. It begins with continuous fibers fed from spools. These fibers pass through a liquid resin bath, usually polyester or epoxy, which coats them completely.

Once impregnated, the fibers enter a heated mold that defines the final profile shape. The resin hardens with the heat, and the finished product is continuously pulled out and cut to the required length. Controlling temperature, speed, and pulling force is key to maintaining precise tolerances and consistent quality.

This process allows for the production of everything from thin rods to complex structural profiles — all with exceptional mechanical strength.

Advantages That Make Pultruded Profiles Stand Out

Compared to traditional materials such as steel, aluminum, or even wood, pultruded profiles offer clear advantages:

Much lighter while maintaining stiffness and strength.
Corrosion- and rust-resistant, ideal for harsh environments.
Non-conductive, making them safe for electrical applications.
Low maintenance and long-lasting.
Dimensionally stable, even under extreme weather conditions.

Thanks to these properties, pultruded profiles are widely used in outdoor structures exposed to sunlight, humidity, or chemicals — environments where other materials would fail.

Fiberglass Pultrusion: The Perfect Balance of Strength and Cost

When we talk about pultrusion, fiberglass is the most common reinforcement choice. Why? Because it offers the ideal balance between performance and cost. It’s strong, affordable, non-conductive, and suitable for a wide range of applications.

In sectors such as construction, agriculture, chemical industry, and marine engineering, fiberglass profiles have become a standard solution. Common uses include:

Railings and outdoor structures
Industrial grating (tramex)
Technical ladders
Machinery components
Agricultural stakes

Manufacturers like Polymec, based in Spain, operate under strict European standards such as UNE-EN 13706, ensuring structural quality in every profile produced.

Types of Pultrusion Profiles Available

One of pultrusion’s great strengths is its versatility. Standard shapes can be produced, but custom designs are also possible for specific applications. The most common include:

Rods (smooth, ribbed, round, or square)
Tubes (round, square, rectangular, telescopic)
Flat bars (plain or special geometry)
Angles, U-profiles, I-beams, dog bones, corner pieces
Gratings (tramex)
Special profiles: steps, manhole covers, skirting boards, tool components

In Polymec’s catalog, there are versions made with fiberglass, carbon fiber, or even graphene additives, offering enhanced properties such as thermal conductivity or chemical resistance.

Standards in Pultruded Profiles: Safety and Quality Assurance

Producing pultruded profiles is not just a technical process — it must also comply with international standards to ensure safety and performance.

In Europe, the key reference is EN 13706, which classifies profiles into two categories: E17 (standard) and E23 (high quality). Polymec manufactures under the latter, meeting stricter requirements for stiffness, strength, and dimensional tolerances.

These profiles are also tested under EN ISO 527 and EN ISO 14125 standards to evaluate their behavior under tension, bending, shear, and other mechanical loads.

Pultrusion and the Future: Growing Applications

The potential of pultruded profiles extends far beyond current uses. Their future is bright — especially in industries seeking sustainable, durable, and long-lasting materials. Emerging applications include:

Supports for solar panels and wind turbines
Railway and marine infrastructure
Components for smart urban furniture
Modular construction systems
Lightweight parts for automotive and electric transport

Thanks to specialized companies like Polymec, which not only manufacture but also advise and customize solutions, pultrusion is positioning itself as a key technology in the shift toward a more efficient and sustainable industrial future.

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Polymec, committed to the environment.

At Polymec, we are committed to protecting the environment. That’s why we carry out initiatives aimed at promoting energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources, strengthening a sustainable and high-quality model within our facilities.

As part of this effort, we have renewed our lighting systems with LED technology and installed a new compressor, achieving an annual reduction of 30 tons of CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere.

This initiative has been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Region of Murcia.

Total investment: €21,945.42
Total grant awarded: €9,047.20
ERDF contribution: €7,237.76

Objective: To advance in the assessment and improvement of energy efficiency in companies, particularly SMEs, and to achieve a cleaner and more sustainable economy.

Greenmur en

Among the technological challenges posed by the materials used in the construction sector, one of the most notable is the need for continuous innovation to achieve products with greater added value — featuring new designs and improved properties — while remaining aligned with a sustainable development model that reduces resource consumption and waste generation. In this regard, the circular economy represents a major opportunity from a business, social, and environmental standpoint.

In this context, Polymec, GLS 2014, and Yesos Rubio, in collaboration with the Technological Centre for Marble, Stone and Materials, have launched the project GREENMUR – Transition to a Greener Regional Industry through Circular Economy Processes in the Fiberglass, Marble, and Plaster Sector via Additive Manufacturing. The initiative incorporates Additive Manufacturing technology to process marble sludge and plaster waste, reinforcing them with fiberglass residues to produce new commercial prefabricated products.

The project will help reduce the consumption of mineral resources in the construction sector, minimize waste generation, and manufacture new products using Industry 4.0 technologies such as Additive Manufacturing, generating significant environmental, social, and economic benefits.

The project has been funded through the R&D Challenges Program of the Region of Murcia and has received financial support from the Development Institute of the Region of Murcia (INFO) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The RECOTRANS project achieves its first demonstrators thanks to a new microwave-based manufacturing process and lightweight multi-materials designed to produce more sustainable vehicles.

In Europe, transport accounts for nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. One of the key strategies to combat this environmental impact is to reduce vehicle weight, which not only lowers fuel consumption but also improves performance, decreases the load on suspension and braking systems, and supports the development of electric vehicles, where range remains a major challenge.

RECOTRANS Project

POLYMEC is participating in the RECOTRANS project, whose goal is to develop technologies and design solutions that reduce vehicle weight without increasing costs. To achieve this, the project is developing multi-material thermoplastic components that both reduce part weight and allow for more complex designs. It also incorporates microwave curing in the manufacturing process to shorten production times and lower energy consumption, as well as metal–polymer hybrid welding to reduce raw material use and improve process standardization and automation. All of this is supported by an intelligent production line monitoring system.

The outcome of this innovative system will be the development of three demonstrators in the automotive, truck, and railway sectors: a car door, a truck cab rear suspension, and an interior panel for a train carriage. Early results from the project show that, after producing the first prototypes, there has been a significant reduction in both costs and energy consumption compared to conventional composites, as well as a viable path toward recycling and reprocessing recycled thermoplastic composites.

The RECOTRANS project, which began in October 2017 and will conclude in October 2021, is funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 program, and involves 13 partners from seven different countries. The developments achieved through this project will also be applicable to other industries.

The GREENMUR project develops a 3D printing material made from industrial waste and white cement.

The latest tests carried out within the GREENMUR project – Transition to a Greener Regional Industry through Circular Economy Processes in the Fiberglass, Marble, and Plaster Sector via Additive Manufacturing have led to the development of a 3D printing material made from marble waste and fiberglass combined with white cement.

We are currently determining the recommended proportions of the three types of waste materials — marble sludge, gypsum powder, and fiberglass (both powdered and fibrous) — to achieve optimal results for 3D extrusion printing, as the mixtures behave as self-compacting concretes. In addition, we will establish the fundamental criteria for non-structural applications (fillings, urban furniture, pavements, sculptures, blocks, etc.) and structural applications in building and civil engineering (use in columns, walls, and floor slabs).

The project is coordinated by the companies Polymec, GLS 2014, and Yesos Rubio, in collaboration with the Technological Centre for Marble, Stone and Materials, and has received financial support from the Development Institute of the Region of Murcia (INFO) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).