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DIMENSIONALLY STABLE AND HIGH-PRECISION TPU FOR THICK-WALLED COMPONENTS

14.01.2020

If abrasion resistance, chemical resistance, seal effect and highest strain values without tearing are required, TPU is the answer. The benefits of thermoplastic urethanes are beyond doubt and cannot be achieved by other polymers in many respects.

Those who have already processed a soft TPU know that processing and demoulding can be a challenge for both man and machine. Especially with changes in wall thickness and areas that are hard to demould, demoulding can become an art in itself. Remedial measures like blowing out or mould release agents are sometimes of little help.

Working with TPU, changes in wall thickness often lead to sink marks or out-of-round parts. If plane parallelism or concentricity is required, the user may very well despair of the material as high shrinkage and difficult processing of a conventual TPU can be counterproductive.

Here, Bada AG’s new development comes in. A new product group of TPUs filled with newly developed and especially compatibilized glass beads make these grades behave like a conventional TPU in terms of strain values and flexibility. When it comes to moulding, these types are vastly superior to conventional TPU in terms of processing, shrinkage, sink marks and demoulding and all this at an economically more attractive price. In addition, the well-known stickiness of soft TPUs also decreases. Suddenly, tool handles with TPU as handle material are much more comfortable to hold and this with the same chemical and oil resistance.

You will find both the advantages and disadvantages visualized in the attached diagram.

Have we piqued your interest? In addition to the stated advantages, Bada AG has the expertise to supply readily coloured products. Thus, machine handles and components can be processed readily coloured in opaque or translucent colours. Attached you will find a photo of a type in shore hardness 80A with 20% glass beads coloured in several customer-specific colours.