Construction Industry

The construction industry is made up of a wide range of different areas, a large proportion of which require seals in some form. Although a relatively new area for Robafoam, we have provided high-quality sealing solutions for a range of companies within this industry over the past few years. Our seals can be found on a variety of different products, ranging from composite doors to office floor tiles, electrical appliances, and gas boiler covers.

The composite door industry, in particular, requires a high IP-rated seal to ensure the Great British weather doesn’t make its way into the customer’s home. Providing a robotically applied seal on the door cassettes eliminates human error in applying cut and cord gaskets, reducing time and therefore costs. Our seals can now be found extensively on new build properties and the flexibility we have in our foam seal application means we are able to provide IP-rated seals for a range of different door styles and sizes.

This year we’re looking forward to be exhibiting again at the FIT Show, showcasing our sealing expertise to the door and window industry. Come along and visit us on Stand T22 on 23rd – 25th May 2023!

Noise, Vibration, Harshness (NVH) within the Automotive Industry

When purchasing a car, alongside many other aspects, an important consideration for the customer is how it feels to drive inside the cabin. The design of the cabin plus the additional features such as audio, seating comfort, and control layout all add to the feel of the car and the experience the customer has in it. Therefore, if NVH is impacting this experience, it’s crucial that the OEM considers how best to reduce this.

NVH stands for Noise, Vibration, Harshness, and is used to classify the noise and vibrations created usually by automotive vehicles. This can be the sound of the vibrations but also the feel of it.
Robafoam’s foam has been used within the automotive industry for many years, with over 30% of our customer base being within the industry. Often our seals are chosen when customers are looking to provide a barrier for water ingress. However, it also performs well as a way of reducing noise and vibration within vehicles. As always our foam can be adapted to the desired part however, NVH applications tend to require softer foam (with more air entrained in the raw material) and a smaller bead. The softer foam allows for more dynamic movement of the parts without damaging them, acting almost as a lubricant. A lower compressive force is also needed, only requiring around 10-20% compression.

Related Article: How can Robafoam’s foam seals benefit the Automotive Industry?

The seals can also be directly bonded to the parts to make sure that the pad will not move out of place which creates a perfect gasket or cushion application. Our foam is applied wet to the part, secured in place, and then cured to bond the substrates together.

NVH can also cover light bleeds, such as on a car dashboard or door panel, ensuring all small gaps or cracks aren’t visible to the customer and therefore providing a higher quality finish.

For more information about how Robafoam can provide foam seals for your parts to reduce NVH, get in touch.

How Robafoam Uses Plasma

At Robafoam, plasma treatment is an important part of our processing, although it’s not required for all parts. When a customer first approaches us with a prototype or part, one of their first questions is ‘will the foam stick to our part?’. The short answer is yes, but it may take some other processes before achieving a suitable adhesion.

Some substrates have a natural adhesion to our polyurethane foam and therefore don’t require additional interference. If there isn’t a natural adhesion then there’s usually something we can do to achieve it, which often is incorporating the use of plasma.

The adhesion of the Robafoam seals to a component’s surface is dependent on the surface energy of the material or the surface treatment in question, as well as any possible contamination of the surface. Different material surfaces exhibit a different level of natural adhesion depending on their surface energy. Surface energy is measured in Dyne/cm2 and the optimal value for adhesion with our foam products is 50 Dyne/cm2.

One way to change the surface energy, to ensure the adhesion of the foam, is through the application of ‘atmospheric plasma’. All our 6-axis robots are equipped with a plasma system to use with our Contract Gasketing customers. The application of plasma is part of the same process, carried out just before the foam bead is applied. Below is a table that shows how the use of plasma changes the adhesion to substrates that our foam doesn’t normally have a natural adhesion.

To find out more about plasma or to speak to someone about your sealing needs, get in touch today.

Development Tender

Robafoam Ltd, Units 1 & 9 Berrington Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV31 1NB

Start date: 4th November 2022

Robafoam are looking for specialist machine builders / engineering companies to undertake a d stage development process of their prototype mechanical foam creation machine. Our prototype single-cylinder system can validate the process-concept but needs to evolve so that it can continually generate foam material. This will be a necessity for this equipment to be “productionized” and therefore become a system with market value. 

Working with the existing prototype system based in Leamington Spa, the appointed contractor will be expected to complete the following:

  1. Design and construct the necessary electronic software and hardware controls to allow a duplication of foam cylinder usage.
  2. Design, manufacture and integrate the dosing cylinder, making modifications to the existing doser system to allow this increase in equipment capability.   
  3. Design and construct a suitable enclosure of the entire system, will all necessary CE & UKCA markings to meet international standards.  

We expect this work on this project to commence as soon as possible and must be completed by 31st March 2023. Payment will be made in instalments as each phase of the project is completed above.  We will assess each bid for the tender in the following way:

  • Experience and demonstrable expertise in the necessary Design / Electronic and hydraulic based engineering 40% 
  • Meeting required timescale 30%
  • Price 20%

If you are interested in tendering for this opportunity or like to know more, please contact the team at uk@robafoam.com or give us a call on 01926 336 231.

This tender will be advertised for 14 days and the closing date for tenders will be 18/11/2022 @ 11:59pm. 

This tender award is subject to ERDF Grant Offer from CW Innovation Programme which will be part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. 

 

Design Guide Breakdown

In this blog post, we will be taking a closer look at our Design Guide brochure and the information it includes which has been created to assist designers in the early stages of a product’s development.

Although an effective and high-performance seal is generally considered to be an important part of our customer’s part, it is often one of the last elements a designer considers when developing a new part. Leaving this focus until the end of the design process, or even when the part has gone into production, can cause problems; especially if the part needs to have an Ingress Protection (IP) rating. Despite the flexibility of our foam, parts will often need to be adapted or changed to incorporate the seal, which adds additional time and costs. Therefore, the earlier a designer can consider the way they will seal their part, the easier it is to develop a high-quality seal.

This is where our Design Guide comes into play. It was created for designers to give an overview of Robafoam’s foam, its properties, and how it can be adapted for their companies’ sealing needs. The brochure contains a range of information on how we are able to adapt our foam as well as the impact that can have on the sealing of the parts it is being applied to.

Foam Technology

Our polyurethane foam has a predominantly closed-cell structure. This means that it isn’t reliant on surface skin integrity for it to work and it performs well with water-tight seal requirements.

It is a unique single-part, low-temperature heat-curing foam and so isn’t reliant on any additional chemicals to be added to apply or cure it. The process takes the raw material from a drum, mechanically mixes it with an adjustable amount of air, and then robotically applies it to the part. The amount of air used in this process impacts the foam’s hardness; the more air added the harder the foam will be. Generally, the harder the foam the higher the sealing performance. Other factors which improve the effectiveness of the seal include higher compression levels and wider bead widths.

Obviously, the part itself also plays a role in its sealing performance. Its flexibility, span, wall thickness, and the size of the fixing points all have an impact on the seal. Although most problems can be overcome by adapting the compression, foam hardness, or bead size, it is still crucial for designers to be taking the sealing of a part into consideration early in the designing process.

 

Joint Design

When looking to include a seal within a joint on a part, the joint design can be an important factor to consider in giving the best possible seal. Robafoam’s foam seals can be used in a range of joint types, working with various levels of compression to provide different sealing abilities. The higher the percentage compression of the foam within the joint, the better the sealing capabilities are. However, some joint designs limit the capability for said compression. The design of the joint can also impact how wide/narrow the foam bead will be which also impacts the seal performance. One way of overcoming difficulties with joint design and compression is by using a tongue and groove joint. Many customers choose this design as there is less surface area needed to provide a higher seal performance.

Adhesion

The adhesion of our foam to a component’s surface is dependent on the surface energy of the material or the surface treatment in question. Different material surfaces exhibit a different level of natural adhesion, as well as potential contamination having an impact.

One way to change the surface energy to ensure the adhesion of the foam is through the application of ‘atmospheric plasma’. All Robafoam’s 6-axis robots are equipped with a plasma system to use with our Contract Gasketing customers. The application of plasma is part of the same process, carried out just before the foam bead is applied.
Another way of increasing adhesion is using liquid surface primers. By increasing the ‘wetting’ of the foam to the surface part, adhesion can be improved, however, this may compromise the height of the bead.
When good surface adhesion already occurs, our foam is also able to be used as an adhesive/bonding agent, both in its liquid foam or unfoamed state. Many customers require us to apply Robafoam’s foam to secure parts together, alongside providing a high-performance seal. This quality means that it can be used in multiple ways, all in the same process, meaning it saves time, space, and investment for our customers.

Heat Curing

Whether requiring Robafoam’s foam for bonding or foam sealing, the material cures rapidly at the temperature on or above 80ᵒC. On its own subjected to these temperatures, it will cure in a matter of seconds. The part itself and its heat sink properties determine the length of time it needs to cure. In most cases, this is 2 to 7 minutes. During the initial enquiry and sample phase of working with a customer, the requirements of the part curing can be adjusted to find the appropriate curing time needed for each part.

Generally, conventional oven systems are used to cure the foam, however, the raw foam will also cure in microwave ovens. The temperature of the part at the time of application can also have an impact on the cure time of the foam. For example, if our foam is applied to a plastic part that has been taken directly from an injection moulding machine (which could be around 60ᵒC), it will require significantly less time in the oven compared to a part being processed at an ambient temperature of 20ᵒC.

The flexibility of Robafoam’s oven systems means that they can be customised to work for any requirement or production environment. Ambient to 220ᵒC, our industrial ovens and thermal systems are suitable for material curing, drying, tempering, preheating, and cooling. Our vertical industrial ovens can help you save space, whilst our wide but flat industrial ovens can fit your current parts exactly.

Industrial ovens

For any further information about our foam and its properties, feel free to download the full Design Guide from the website. If you have any further questions on how we may be able to help with your company’s sealing needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

The logic behind IP ratings with Robafoam’s FIPFG seal

How we achieve it and the benefits

Robafoam’s foam seals have a predominantly closed cell structure. This means that they aren’t reliant on surface skin integrity for it to work and they perform well with watertight Ingress Protection (IP) rated seal requirements. In this blog post we will look at how an IP rating is achieved and the different components which can adapt it to the customer’s requirements.

Our foam characteristics

The 1K foam we create is a unique single part, low temperature heat curing foam and so isn’t reliant on any additional chemicals to be added to apply or cure it. The process takes the raw material from a drum, mechanically mixes it with an adjustable amount of air and then robotically applies to the part. The amount of air used in this process impacts the foam hardness, the more air added the harder the foam will be. Generally, the harder the foam the higher the sealing performance.

The part itself also plays a role in its sealing performance. Its flexibility, span, wall thickness and the size of the fixing points all have an impact on the seal. Although most problems can be overcome by adapting the compression, foam hardness or bead size, it is still crucial for designers to be taking the sealing of a part into consideration early in the designing process.

Achieving an IP rating – The relationship between bead size, hardness and compression

There are three main components to consider when looking to achieve an IP rating:

Graph

That being said, all elements can be adapted to fit with different requirements or differences in the part. As each individual part has certain seal requirements, the three factors much be varied to work with that part. For example, a part that has a butt joint may need to have the foam bead size increased to achieve a better IP rating, something that is not possible if using a tongue and groove joint. In this case, the bead may need to made higher or harder to improve the IP rating. Below are some more details on how we adapt these three key elements.

Change in bead size

By adjusting the flow rate, we can increase or decrease the volume of foam being applied. We are also able to produce different foam bead thickness within the same application by programming the robot to change speeds. This means that parts can have varied seal thicknesses without the need to stop and start the process.

Foam hardness:

By changing the frequency of the pulse valve, in relation to the movement of the piston pump movement (constant flow rate) it is possible to increase or reduce the levels of entrained air. Therefore, change the final hardness of the foamed material applied to the part. So, from the one base material a wide range of hardness’s can be created. We refer to this as a change in Foam Ratio. This foam ratio is the change in weight of a known volume of material. For example ratio 3.0 is 1/3 the weight of the unfoamed raw material.

Foam Graph

Compression

As shown in the diagram below, the same bead size can be compressed within a range of different joint types to different percentages, in order to create different IP ratings. By looking at each individual part and its joint design, we can offer advice and recommendations for the best bead size, and joint design adjustments, to work with the compression that is needed. The compression is calculated dimensionally by the change in height. If the part uses a tongue and groove joint design, this is measured from the end of the tongue and therefore is generally the most reliable way of creating a higher IP rating.

Compression effect

Sealing Requirements for the Automotive Lighting Industry

Following on from our recent visit to the Emergency Services Show at the NEC in Birmingham, we thought we would look in more detail at automotive lighting and the sealing requirements they have.

Despite the extensive design process of creating a car, there can still be problems encountered once the car has gone to full production and is being sold on the market. One of these problems is water ingress into the lighting enclosures, resulting in water pooling in the light and eventually a reduction of the effectiveness of the lamp. Sorting this can be costly, which is why effective sealing which is incorporated into the design at an early stage is so important.

Most commonly, automotive companies were using manually fitted cord seals to prevent water ingress. Although generally effective, these are time consuming to apply and are also subject to human error. Therefore, the conversion to Formed in Place Gaskets, improves productivity and reduced the quality issues regularly seen with manually fitted seals. It also increases IP rating performance, improving service requirements due to the adhesion of foam to the part surface.

Robafoam has been working within the automotive industry since it was established in the UK in 2013 and today around a third of our customers are part of the automotive industry. We have a wealth of experience in applying seals to a wide range of parts, for both interior and exterior components, including lighting.

Robafoam’s foam has been subjected to vigorous testing during its development and continues to be tested to ensure its compliance with a variety of standards. One of these is the ASTM D1003 standard test method for haze and clarity which means that it can be used effectively within the lighting sector of the automotive industry.

We understand that no two application designs are the same. We use our expertise in working with the automotive industry to support designers, adapt designs as necessary and seal accordingly, all to achieve the standards required for the specific application. Each part can have the seal customised in size, hardness and design to ensure that specifications from the customer are met.

From Prototype to Production

Robafoam is able to help a customer’s sealing requirements at any stage of its production. Whether you are in the initial design stage and still adapting CAD designs, or you have a finished product in production, we can offer sealing advice and support. In this blog article, we look at the different stages that our customers approach us at and give some more information on how we can help.

Design concept

The easiest point for us to offer advice on when looking at a customer’s part is as early in the design process as possible. By looking at the functional aspects of a seal within a part right at the beginning of the CAD stage, it means that the design can be adapted, if necessary, without the costs and stress which may occur if the part has been moved onto the prototype or production phase.

If you are currently at design concept stage, Robafoam has 30 years of experience to advise how best to incorporate a high performance robotically applied seal. We will evaluate a CAD design and offer free design advice, taking into consideration joint design, fixing points, bolt locations, compression control and the part material to work out the best type of seal for the part. We can adapt the bead size, shore hardness and take into consideration the impact of compression to ensure the part performs as expected. This is particularly important when looking to achieve an Ingress Protection (IP) rating for the part.

We are also happy to sign an NDA to ensure protection of your product if necessary.

Prototype

Most of the time our customers approach us for sealing support when they are in the prototype stage. Often the part will have been approved in the CAD stage but, once testing begins on the prototype, leaking or other issues will become apparent, and designers are asked to look for new sealing options to overcome these issues.

If you have moved onto the prototype stage of your part, we’re able to apply seals to one off 3D printed models for testing and can help with advice to develop the seals if required. We also offer ongoing project support throughout the development phases of part evolution. The only requirement we have is that the printed rapid prototypes are made from a thermally stable material (in an thermal oven at 80° for 10 minutes).

Our dedicated lab facility means that designers can come in for on site support and advice with our team and see how the seal could be adapted to overcome any failures in testing that may have been encountered.

We also offer our own on site testing, including composite/adhesion testing, IP rating evaluation through the use of water immersion and a high pressure water spray. A key benefit to our lab facility is the size of the production cell, which is able to work with parts up to 2 metres  x 3 metres in size.

Preproduction (small batch)

Once through the prototype phase, the part may then need to be processed in small batches for further testing or development, while hard tooling is produced or the company waits for production equipment to be delivered and installed for larger volume production. Robafoam can support parts made with soft tooling and during this preproduction phase as we have no minimum order quantity requirements. This is perfect to help refine the process before it moves onto larger scale production, allowing the part to be tested and checked within the final product. It’s also an invaluable phase for customers process engineers can appreciate refine methods in advance of bringing a sealing system ‘in house’, as discussed below in system purchasing.

Volume processing – contract gasketing

When companies are ready to move on to full production of the part and are through the design and testing process, we can move onto processing the parts in larger volumes at our production facility in Leamington Spa. We refer to this process as Contract Gasketing. This is when the customer sends us the parts, we apply the foam seal using our 6 axis robots, cure it in a thermal oven, repackage the parts and return to the customer. We make it easy for the customer to achieve a high-quality seal without the need to invest in expensive system equipment. We also offer assembly of parts if required and have a dedicated area for them to be processed. Our own vehicle logistics offer a cost effective option for collection and delivery of parts if required.

At our site based in Leamington Spa in the Midlands, we run a three shift pattern and have five systems available to process our customer’s parts. Costs are developed based on the processing time of the part, material usage and any additional assembly requirements. If the part requires plasma to ensure adhesion to the substrate (something that may have been investigated in the earlier stages of design/prototype testing), we have plasma systems fitted to all our production cells and offer as part of the incorporated costings of the process time.

We regularly receive requests for support at this stage of the process when a product has begun full production but is failing at testing. Robafoam can offer advice and solutions if companies are having problems with sealing when parts are already in full production. It can limit the options available and can sometimes lead to design adjustments needing to be made but is possible.

System purchasing

For those customers who are producing parts in higher volumes (typically >150,000 parts per year), we are the UK’s supplier for CeraCon foam system equipment for use on the customers’ site. Designed to meet each individuals’ requirements, we can support them in the development of the cell and the type of robot best suited, the size of cell, type of thermal/moisture cure oven and whether plasma is required. As the single point of contact for all the different elements, it makes the ordering of a system as stress free as possible. Once we have supported the equipment’s installation and ensured that everything is up and running smoothly, our assistance doesn’t stop there. We continue to offer servicing support, supply spare parts when necessary and are on hand whenever there is an issue.

For more information on how we can help your sealing requirements, regardless of what stage you’re at in the production of your product, please get in touch with the details on our website.

Sealing Requirements for the Battery Electric Vehicle Industry

As pledged by the current government, the UK is hoping to stop all production of petrol and diesel cars by 2030. There is therefore a pressure on automotive companies to produce safe and effective HEV and BEVs by this point, in order to reduce the amount of carbon pollution that is produced in our country and ensure a positive impact on the world around us.

One element which has been a significant and demanding challenge for OEMs is the sealing of the battery packs. Water ingress can result in a significant fire hazard, as experienced by the company Tesla with their early models. It is also necessary to create a faraday cage around the battery cells for safety and shielding reasons.

When looking at sealing battery enclosures, an OEM has a number of options to consider:

  1. They can use a “wet” curing adhesive, which effectively bonds the battery enclosure together. This does work very effectively as a seal. However, when it comes to servicing the battery packs, which will be a requirement for the OEM’s, the separation of this bonded joint is very difficult, and the residue must be cleaned off prior to re-bonding the assembly.
  2. A non-setting, “tacky polymer” applied to the assembled joint. This is more troublesome to apply than Option 1 as it tends to be a viscos product. Separation is easier as the polymer hasn’t set however, its tacky nature means that dirt and debris will be attracted to the surface. This may result is subsequent re-assembly of the joint being less effective. Cleaning off and re-application would also be very troublesome.
  3. A foam cord or cut gasket applied to the joint before assembly. As this type of sealing method must be done manually (automation is not possible), it represents a significant challenge. Some of JLR’s battery packs are approx. 2.5m x 1.5m in size. Also, the potential for human error in the process is significant, which can lead to quality concerns.

This is where Robafoam’s foam seals come into play. Our robotically applied foam can provide high performance water-tight IP rated seals which overcome many of the problems presented by these companies.

The single component polyurethane foam is applied by a 6 axis robot to directly the required part. The application process means that the seal is applied perfectly again and again, on any substrate, without the worry of human error. At Robafoam we have worked with UK based chemists to create a raw material that, when combined with compressed air, produces a foam which only requires thermal activation in order for it to cure.

The foam is based on polyether polyols and aliphatic isocyanates and has an extremely low proportion of free monomers (<0.05 per cent by weight). Density and shore hardness can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the amount of air within the material. The method of application and liquid foam characteristics makes it possible to create 3D or overhead applications without the foam running. There is also no groove on the part surface needed for application, although the method of compression must be controlled. Once cured using a thermal oven, it provides outstanding material properties, such as excellent resistance to hydrolysis, low water absorption and very good recovery behaviour.

The recovery behaviour means that when used on battery packs, they are able to be opened and closed without needing to remove the seal or causing the effectiveness of the seal to be compromised. Robafoam’s new Technical Centre has also been designed to accommodate the size of these battery packs (accommodating parts up to 2m x 3m) for both R&D purposes but also includes the safety features needed to use it as a full production cell as well.

The lab cell’s main purpose is to provide support and testing for automotive customers including designers and those who work in R&D who have been tasked with helping Britain achieve the government set goal of only producing fully electric vehicles by 2030. The current work taking place at the Gigafactory just outside Coventry makes Robafoam Ltd (located in Leamington Spa) perfectly placed to support these automotive companies as we move forward into a greener way of life.

Robafoam will be showcasing our sealing capabilities and offering more information at the Vehicle Electrification Expo in the NEC Birmingham on 29th and 30th June 2022. If are an OEM looking for sealing options for an electric vehicle and have any further questions, please visit us at stand 17-717.

How Do You Ensure Good Adhesion To Your Part?

One of the most frequent questions we get asked when speaking to potential customers is ‘Will the foam stick to our part?’. The short answer is yes, but it may take some other processes before achieving a suitable adhesion. Some substrates have a natural adhesion and therefore don’t require additional interference. If there isn’t a natural adhesion then there’s usually something we can do to achieve it. In this blog post, we will discuss adhesion further and look at a previous example of when Robafoam has overcome difficulty with adhesion.

The adhesion of the Robafoam seals to a component’s surface is dependent on the surface energy of the material or the surface treatment in question, as well as any possible contamination of the surface. Different material surfaces exhibit different levels of natural adhesion depending on their surface energy. Surface energy is measured in Dyne/cm2 and the optimal value for adhesion with our foam products is 50 Dyne/cm2.

One way to change the surface energy, to ensure the adhesion of the foam, is through the application of ‘atmospheric plasma’. All our 6 axis robots are equipped with a plasma system to use with our Contract Gasketing customers. The application of plasma is part of the same process, carried out just before the foam bead is applied. Below is a table that shows how the use of plasma changes the adhesion to substrates that our foam doesn’t normally have a natural adhesion to.

Another way of increasing adhesion is by using liquid surface primers. By increasing the ‘wetting’ of the foam to the surface part, adhesion can be improved, however, this may compromise the height of the bead as the foam has an affinity with the surface and wants to spread.

Case Study – Airline smart trolley latch – Security seal

In 2016, a company that had developed a product to overcome security difficulties with airline trolleys approached us to apply a seal to their part. The part (as pictured below) was a complex double-faced, 3D part, made of polycarbonate material and was the outside case which enclosed a number of electrical components as well as a GPS system.

 

The airline trolleys (holding food and gifts) are usually delivered with a security tab attached to the opening latch, which is removed by airline staff when setting up the plane. After some testing, these tabs were found to be very easy to open by non-airline staff, who could change the contents and apply a new security tab. The ability to plant an item on these trolleys that don’t require to go through security measures obviously then compromises the safety of the aeroplane. A new product was developed which held a smart security seal, allowing the trolley to be connected to electronic keys held by airline staff and therefore ensuring others are unable to open the trolley.

The part was brought to us during the prototype stage and required a IP69K rating, which means that the seal needed to withstand being sprayed by high-pressure water at point-blank conditions. When applying the foam to the prototypes, there was a natural adhesion to the samples and the testing all went smoothly and achieved the required IP rating. The product then moved onto production, and we received the first production parts to seal, however, we found all the foam gaskets we applied began to peel off. After much discussion with the customer, we realised that a fire-retardant additive, which had been added by the injection moulding company to the final production parts but not the initial prototypes, was causing a change in the Dyne/cm2 value of the part and therefore affecting the adhesion. Once plasma was incorporated into the process of the seal, all was solved and the parts were retested and able to be used.

This instance is one of many examples where Robafoam have had to adjust its processing to ensure a suitable adhesion to a part we have received. Plastic parts in particular can be made of varying percentages of materials, which can all have an impact on the adhesion of our foam. Recyclable parts, for example, are often required to be made with recycled content too, all in varying percentages. If we don’t know the percentage of recycled content, the best way to overcome adhesion difficulties is for us to test it.
What the product is made of is only one element that can affect adhesion. As previously mentioned, the contamination of a part can also impact its levels of adhesion. Airborne contaminants, such as working in an oily environment, can mean the foam won’t stick to the part. Plasma has a cleaning effect to a degree and can improve adhesion, but there may need to be other processes implemented to provide an adequate seal.

Plasma also has less impact on other substrates, including glass and stainless steel. In these cases, other options may need to be considered. When using raw aluminium, anodising can be used as this has the ability to increase adhesion too.
In summary, our 30 years of experience in the sealing and adhesive industry means we have a range of options and solutions available to you and are here to help. If you require some advice or wish to work with us to help develop a seal on your part, please get in touch.