tpe/tpr plastic material dual material applications

　　Due to the popularity of the majority of consumers, the application of dual materials in recent years has formed a major trend, the application range is extremely wide, from toothbrush handle, comb handle, cleaning brush handle, knife handle, scissor handle and other daily necessities to flashlight handle, hair dryer handle, iron handle, electric toothbrush and other small household appliances, manufacturers are always trying to add a layer of TPE, so that the product more diversified. The market is expanding and its applications will become more widespread.

　　Generally speaking, TPE dual material injection molding can produce the following functions in product design.

　　1. To make the product surface with a soft and comfortable feeling

　　2. Make the product with anti-slip function

　　3. Improve the impact resistance of products

　　4. Increase the added value of old products and enhance the product grade

　　5. Processing method

　　1. Multiple Material Molding (MMM)

　　Multiple Material Molding (MMM) is processed by multi-material injection molding machine (commonly known as two-color machine), which is generally divided into two different designs, such as right angle injection table arrangement and balanced injection table arrangement. The right-angle two-color machine can be matched with a variety of two-color mold operation methods, such as: turntable type, core rotation, mold core sinking, live door separation, mold core sliding, etc. Two (or more) kinds of plastics are injected into different mold cavities at the same time to achieve the effect of multi-color or multi-material.

　　Its advantages are briefly as follows.

　　1. Short production cycle and higher output than traditional methods

　　2. Stable product quality and low scrap rate.

　　3. Stronger material bonding force and less defects on the bonding surface.

　　4. It is possible to manufacture more complex design of two-material products.

　　2. Insert Molding

　　Insert Molding is also known as the two-step method. This method is performed on a conventional or upright injection molding machine. This method requires two sets of molds and two injection molding machines. The pre-made hard plastic parts are fixed in the mold cavity of the second set of molds in the form of inserts, and then the TPE is injected into the hard plastic parts to achieve the effect of multi-color and multi-material.

　　Soft and hard material combination

　　In the application of dual material co-molding, different hard plastics are used for different products, such as PP for brushes, and ABS, PC or PA (nylon) for home appliances. Because the characteristics of each specification or variety of TPE are different, and a single specification of TPE can not have good bonding ability with every kind of hard plastic, so in the soft and different hard materials, it is necessary to cooperate with different specifications of TPE, in order to achieve the best bonding effect.

　　What kind of adhesive can be co-molded with TPE?

　　PP, PE

　　ABS, PC, ABS/PC Alloy

　　PA66, PA+GF

　　SAN, K-RESIN, PS, HIPS, PMMA