How to Die-Cut Tyvek

Laser or water-jet cutting?

Hi. Can you post a close up image of the material? A thought could be a heated die that cuts and melts the part. It might get stuck in the die but the tool can have a ejecting core to spit each part out after the cut/melt.

The gasket industry and the paper industry both use steel rule dies.

The die cutting is done two different ways with same issues: male/female dies (tried different angle designs and concave) and with steel rule to poly anvil.

How many sheets are you cutting at a time?

How many sheets do you wish to cut at one time?

Automated system? I would assume yes. Are you dedicated to the process of die cutting, or open to other process?

I don't have a closeup of the material but it is used in different industries. You may have seen it in FedEx (untearable) envelopes or as a porous, water resistant material used in building as a house wrap. Kevlar is the material used in bullet proof vests. Tyvek is more important for being light weight and breathable yet very tough-hard to tear or puncture.

Sacrificial backing material or laser?

Freeze it just before it goes through the die cutter.

For a plethora of information about Tyvek, I suggest contacting Material Concepts, Inc. They are an authorized master distributor of Tyvek and offer a lot of information about the various types of Tyvek rolls, sheets, paper, fabric and graphics media on their website. Their phone number is 215-338-6515.

I have spent 1,000 or more hours studing shear cut angles. It woud help to know what the cut looks like under a powerful microscope. How much is shear and how much is fracture. Since I do not know your process, probably some device to assure the cut was completed may help to avoid an uncut strand. You could either use visual or manual clearance assurance for each cut which would stop the process until corrected

Probably a rotary cutting is much better than a guillatine type cutting.

A manual arm moving downward after each cut would certify the cut was made, but I do not know how clean the cut needs to be. A study of the cross-section of the cut would help.

P E Bobimm

I would be happy to put you in touch with a company here in PA that has done some die cutting for us on a few Tyvek projects - all around the 7.5 mil range.

Please let me know!

oops... forgot to include my email or # if you wanted to get in touch:

1-800-372-3366 x 101 or Doug@materialconcepts.com

Thanks for all the input. I have the DuPont information and have tried most. I will lookup Materials Concept and also will look at magnifying the cuts for better determination of mode of failure. We are focusing on the cutting die/anvil approach and looking for a good polymer to mount on anvil that will withstand 100's (1,000's?) of cuts without causing cut failures. Thanks again to all.

Hi dcquest - are you using a swing arm clicker to die cut?

We have built several systems to die cut Tyvek, Gor Tex, and other thin film media down to 1 mil. I'd gladly make you some samples from one of our test dies so that you can inspect them to see if they fit your criteria.

We were just in to a facility last week who is running a cutting system that we built several years ago. We were called in to replace their orignal system due to incomplete cut/fuzz issues. The have run over 10 million pieces and have not had to touch it. It is a problem we know how to solve.

mark@jencometal.com