In this episode of Tale of the Tape, Matt Tempelis walks us through the key differences between open and closed cell foams.
Interested in learning more? Stay tuned for our next video, where we'll have an exciting demonstration of the key differences between these types of foam.
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to Tale of the Tape. I'm Matt Tempelis, President of Engineered Materials and your Minister of Tape. Today, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the differences between open and closed cell foams. If you're talking about open cell foams, you're talking about interlocking porous openings that form a structure of the material. This is a 2lb polyurethane ester with a UL rating. It's a lot like a sponge. It's a very common material. You probably seen this in some applications in your refrigerator or perhaps your HVAC unit at home. It allows for air and water to penetrate and absorb and actually pass through the material. Great when you're creating some sort of filter, less good, of course, when you're trying to create a watertight seal. Open cell foams are great sound absorbers and they have terrific recovery, as you will see in an upcoming episode. This material, for example, also can be compressed down to nearly nothing of its original half inch thickness. Here I have the 3M ISOLOSS™ LS-1050LM product. It looks like it's a closed cell foam, but it's actually a microscopic pores of this high density urethane material. It is super resilient. It's a great sound absorber and used for a variety of applications where a positive seal isn't required. But instead you need lots of resilience as you're opening and closing a door or an enclosure.
And you need this as a as a nice gasket. On the other hand, closed cell foams are tiny, compressed air pockets that are packed together within the material. This is an Armaflex vinyl nitrile. Think tiny balloons within this rubber compound. It is absolutely this and closed cell foams are very low water and air absorption. They create positive seals. They're great for gasketing. They will float in liquids just like what you use when you're putting on your life preserver for that wakeboarding this summer. And they actually do not have the recovery that you would have in those open cell foams. This over time, if you squeeze this enough and put it under compression, it creates a positive seal. It also will not rebound to its original thickness. It will have a phenomenon called compression set. And every closed cell gasketing has a different type of compression set. All foams have compression set, but but you really need to watch out for it in these types of closed cell gasket materials. So what's the pro and con of some of these open cell materials? They're lightweight, they're flexible, they're highly resilient, as I mentioned. And some of them like this PU ester, are very cost effective. So they can be used as a spacer and other things and not add much cost.
They also are great for air and water filtration, sound absorbers for acoustic insulation, high resilience gaskets that I mentioned before. And again, over time you can compress this for long periods of time, this ISOLOSS™, and you're not going to have a lot of change in the overall thickness of the material over time. The closed cell foam products have great tear resistance. They're strong, they're durable, they're really good insulators, so they can be used as insulation materials and they create positive seals. So, hey, you need a gasket to keep in or out water and air. You're going to be using a closed cell foam and you can use them as insulators. You can use them as weatherstripping and spacers. They can be used for a lot of different applications. We've been discussing the differences between open and closed cell foams. It's important to understand those differences when you're choosing the material for your application. If you have questions, we're happy to help at Engineered Materials. Remember, at Engineered Materials, we do more than just provide open and closed cell foams, provide more than just tapes and rubber materials and specialty materials. We make those materials into parts that are usable and meaningful for your application. Thank you and see you next time on Tale of the Tape.
