TPE or thermoplastic elastomer is a generic name for a wide range of materials
ranging from materials with a urethenae base (TPU), or olefinic (TPO),
polyester, polyaminde (nylons), styrene, etc, and the addition of a
plasticizer(s). They range in softness for 3 shore A to the high shore D range.
Original applications were replacement for vulcanized rubber. Typically now
they are used in under the hood and interior automotive applications.
Lately the softer materials (< 20 shore A) have been used for hand tools and
tooth brushes. Have you seen the tooth brushes with the soft handles? The soft
material is a TPE molded on top of the harder handle material (overmolding).
They are also doing hand tool grips this way (drills, etc).
Co-molding is an ill defined process which can be the same as overmolding (one
material is molded and then in the same machine using a second barrel another
material is molded, ex. keycaps). It also can cover a process in which one
material melt stream is contained inside another and the mateirals are molded at
the same time, one material becoming the "skin"-this process may have other
terminology as well (I get confused). It can also cover a relatively new
process in which one barrell is used and fed with two distinct loadings of
material-divided in the barrel one in front of the other. The first material
forms one layer and the other forms either the skin or the core.
Major material suppliers include:
BASF http://www.BASF.com/,
Shell's Kraton,
Advanced Elastomers,
as well as many others including specialty compounders like GLS and Hanah.
Hope I haven't babbled too much.
Mark
>
> Could you explain to us what TPE's are, typical applications for this
> material, and a little bit about what overmolding and co-molding is?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Glenn Whiteside
> e-mail: siderwhite@worldnet.att.net
>
> For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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