Acrylic foam tapes provide durable bonding,
superior sealing, and effective insulation. Learn about the advantages of these
PSA tapes, how technical buyers and product designers select them, and how
different types of acrylic foams tapes are used with infrastructure and mobile
equipment.
Acrylic
foam tapes provide dependable, cost-effective bonding, sealing, and insulation
for infrastructure and mobile equipment. These double-sided industrial tapes
have an acrylic foam core and use a high-strength pressure-sensitive adhesive
(PSA) with a release liner. The foam core distributes stress evenly, and the
PSA provides permanent attachment without metal fasteners, messy liquid
adhesives, or time-consuming setup or curing processes. Are acrylic foam tapes
right for your application? Let's take a look.
Advantages of Acrylic Foam Tapes
Installers
like acrylic foam tapes because they don't require extensive surface
preparation or cleanup, and support peel-and-stick application. Inventory
managers like that the release liners protect the PSA tapes during extended
storage. Acrylic foam tapes also strengthen product designs because of their
outstanding adhesive and viscoelastic properties. They attach readily and
reliably to dissimilar materials such as glass. Theses plastic foam tapes also resist deformation,
absorb shock, isolate vibration, and dampen noise.
Acrylic foam
tapes provide outstanding shear adhesion, too. Shear adhesion describes the
ability of a tape to resist static forces that are applied in the same plane as
the backing. Typically, shear adhesion is expressed as the time required for a
given weight to cause a unit of tape to loosen from a vertical panel. In
applications such as architectural panels and truck panels then, the shear
adhesion of acrylic foam tapes supports not just the product's design, but
quality and safety.
If acrylic foam
tapes are right for your application, which type of tape should you select?
Acrylic Foam
Tapes and Product Design
Technical
buyers and product designers can choose acrylic foam tapes that are clear,
gray, white, or dark in color. Some clear acrylic foam tapes are so transparent
that they're nearly invisible when applied to a glass substrate. Other PSA
tapes are gray, white, or black so that they can match or closely match the
color of the substrate. Acrylic foam tapes differ in terms of thickness, too.
All of these factors are important, but buyers and designers must also consider
surface energy and application environment.
Different
materials have different surface energies, and that means a tape that's right
for one type of substrate might not be right for another. To ensure optimal
attachment, the adhesive's surface energy must be equal to or lower than the
surface energy of the substrate. Metals and glasses have relatively high
surface energies. PVC and polyester are medium surface energy materials. Buyers
and designers must also consider environmental factors such as maximum
temperature, sunlight, and weathering.
Acrylic Foam Tape Types and Applications
Elasto Proxy custom-fabricates
acrylic foam tapes for both interior and exterior applications.
Transparent, double-sided, acrylic foam tapes are
used in infrastructure applications such as security glass, bath and shower
hardware, appliance components, and polycarbonate bonding.
- Grey, double-sided, acrylic foam tapes are used
in skin bonding and roof bonding for mobile equipment such as buses, trucks,
and trailers.
- White, double-sided, acrylic foam tapes are used
for roof panel bonding on truck cabs, and for mirror mounting. Infrastructure
applications include hinges, handles, and control elements for appliances.
- Dark, double-sided, acrylic foam tapes are used
in window shade side panels, elevator panels, and shelving and furniture. Additional
applications include ceramic cooktop bonding.
All of these plastic foam tapes
provide durable, long-lasting adhesion to substrates with high surface energy.
They also exceed industry standards for shear strength and bonding, even at
elevated temperatures.
How Can We Help You?
From tape selection and technical
assistance to custom fabrication and inventory management, Elasto Proxy is
ready to help you add acrylic foam tapes to your product designs. Would you
like to learn more? Please contact us for information. We will close for the
winter holidays at noon on Thursday, December 24, 2015 and reopen on Monday,
January 4, 2015.
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