The next episode of Tale of the Tape is here! Matt Tempelis walks through several things to consider when choosing the right foam for your needs.
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to Tale of the Tape. I'm Matt Tempelis, President of Engineered Materials and your Minister of Tape. Today, I'm also your Minister of Gasketing. We'd like to talk a little bit today about considerations when selecting a foam gasket or insulation material. We're going to do a high level overview and then we're going to do a deep dive into some specific topics as we go forward. Just like pressure sensitive adhesives, you want to understand your overall application requirements. Really deep dive into what that gasket or insulation is going to see over time, what physical properties you're going to need out of that material, environmental conditions it's going to be exposed to and then any other critical specifications that you want to consider. The first thing that is certain is we like to use ASTM D1056 as a great checking guide after you've defined your needs. It's a great kind of opportunity to walk through some of the very specific components that you want to consider for a foam gasket or insulation. If you talk about the first thing you've got to figure out is whether you need an open cell foam or a closed cell foam rubber. Are you trying to seal against liquid or air intrusion? Create a positive seal? Or do you need breathability? And are you trying to filter against debris, dust and other materials? Do you need something highly resilient? You're going to want that open cell foam, otherwise closed cell foam for the positive seals. Next, you're going to want to talk about physical properties.
What area do you have to work with? What kind of thickness of the material are you going to need? You have a thickness requirement in your application. And then if you're creating a positive seal, what kind of compression deflection is going to be required of that gasketing material to create that positive seal with the thickness that you choose? If you have an application where you're opening and closing doors, for example, compression set becomes a very important consideration that you want to think about and review on your gasketing material. And then overall, mechanical resilience. If you if you're going to see mechanical fatigue or impact resistance, you want a gasket that's going to be able to withstand that. And then, of course, color becomes a pretty important requirement in these materials. Oftentimes, typical colors are white, gray and black. But you can get the purple gasket if you really want it and need it or the purple foam material. You're just going to have an MOQ that you're going to have to deal with, and so hopefully the application can handle that. In terms of environmental conditions, of course, is it going to be outside? Right. Is it going to see a lot of heat and humidity? Is it going to see a lot of UV and thus ozone as well? Do you need operating temperatures that are that are very high or do you have an operating temperature around room temperature? That's going to affect the material that you choose. What about chemical or solvent or oil or fuel exposure? And how much? If you see any of these things and then if you're in an oil field and you're going to see them in an application where it's full exposure, you're going to need one material.
If it's just splashes and small amounts, it obviously can be a wider range of materials. And longevity. What about durability of the overall material? How long do you need it to last? And then insulation properties. These are great insulators thermally. They're great acoustic insulators oftentimes. But again, it depends on the material. And then vibration isolation. Some are better than others. Then lastly, they can even be electrical insulators. So do you need any of these requirements for your foam material? Lastly, critical specifications like flame retardancy or UL specifications. What about smoke and toxicity requirements? All important to consider. How about MilSpecs or FDA indirect or direct food contact? There's certain gaskets that absolutely can have indirect food contact, for example, others that should not. All things you want to consider as you're finding the right foam material for your job. So we've talked a little bit at a high level about some important considerations that you want to think about when you're designing your foam gasket or insulation application. Remember at Engineered Materials, we provide more than tape and gasket parts. We deliver results that drive your company forward. We'll see you next time on Tale of the Tape.
