On this episode of Tale of the Tape, Matt Tempelis breaks down the ASTM D1056 letter/numbering system from The American Society.
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Tale of the Tape. I'm Matt Tempelis, president of Engineered Materials, and since I'm coming back from spring break here just recently. Today I'd like to talk about ASTM D1056. It's a standard specification for flexible cellular materials, specifically sponge and cellular rubber. It's a helpful guide to specifying your foam material without boxing yourself in to a specific product number or a branded product item. The specification defines the type, the class, and the grade of foam material that you require. It also has helpful suffixes that further define your requirements to ensure that you get the foam that you need. So a foam spec under D1056 might look something like this 2C1, C1, F1, M. So 2C1 defines the type, the class, and the grade of cellular foam materials. The C1, F1, and M are all suffixes that further define your specific requirements. So let's dig a little bit deeper into the type, the class, and the grade of material. In our example we have 2C1. So the first character that type is 1 or 2. That's the only range it can be. One is open cell foam, two is closed cell foam. The next is the class a little bit more complicated and not quite as straightforward. It goes A through D so only four characters are available there. A is it needs no oil resistance required in the foam.
B is excellent oil resistance is required in the foam. C is medium oil resistance required in the foam. And then D has nothing to do with oil resistance. It is extreme temperature resistance is required in the foam. In our case we have a C, so we know we need a closed cell foam with medium oil resistance required in that foam. The last character is the grade. This is all about compression deflection, a very important characteristic in all closed cell foams and open cell foams. It is a range from 0 to 5, zero, being the low end of 0 to 2 pounds per square inch compression deflection at 25%, five being the high end, which is 17 to 25 pounds per square inch compression deflection at 25%. In our case, it is a one that is 2 to 5 pounds compression deflection. So now we know we have a closed cell foam. It has to have medium oil resistance and it has to have a compression deflection between 2 to 5 pounds per square inch. Now let's talk about suffixes. They can help you describe down to the T your specific foam requirements. They include things like heat aging requirements, ozone resistance requirements, temperature flexibility requirements, water absorption capabilities, fluid immersion requirements, flame resistance requirements, compression set needs, tear impact, abrasion resistance, resilience of the foam, and tensile elongation of the foam.
Pretty much anything you want to describe. If you want to go down to the level of detail, you can do it through those suffixes. So in our example C1, F1, M, C1 calls out a specific ozone resistance per an ASTM, the F1 calls out low temperature flexibility is required, and M1 requires a specific flame resistance burn rate. So we know our foam. We have not specified a brand. We have not specified a product number. But we've specified 2C1, C1, F1, M. We know that we need a closed cell foam. It's got to have medium oil resistance. It also needs a compression deflection range of 2 to 5 pounds per square inch at 25%. It also must have a specific ozone resistance. It must have a specific low temperature flexibility. And it must have flame resistance at a specific burn rate. You have called out the foam. We know exactly what it is, and folks like us can use that and use our sourcing abilities to pick the right product for you at the right price. We've discussed the usefulness of ASTM D1056 and specifying foams for your specific needs. If you'd like to learn more about the specification or looking for specific foams to meet your application needs under ASTM D1056, we're here to help. We'll see you next time on Tale of the Tape.
