TPE/TPU Material Development Case: Application of TA80A-WD-ANBJ in Electronic Keypads
Time of issue:2026-03-06
I. Case Background and Customer Requirements
The customer, an electronic device manufacturer, has designed a key component—a soft rubber insert located in the middle of the button—for its new product. This soft rubber needs to be coated and bonded onto a rigid PC-based housing; pressing the soft rubber activates the underlying electronic push-button switch. The customer has set forth stringent requirements for the soft rubber material:
Excellent encapsulation performance: It must adhere firmly to the PC substrate and remain free from cracking or delamination even under repeated pressing.
High-temperature dimensional stability: Ensures that the product maintains its dimensions and does not deform during injection molding and in subsequent service environments.
High fluidity: To ensure rapid mold filling for intricate structures and achieve stable, efficient production.
High Durability: Features extremely high elongation at break and excellent flexural resistance, enabling it to withstand tens of thousands of pressing operations.
II. Problem Analysis and Material Selection
The core challenge of this application lies in balancing adhesive strength, fatigue resistance, and processability.
Bonding reliability is the primary critical factor: If the encapsulation effect is poor and the interface easily cracks, it will directly lead to product malfunction.
The material must withstand long-term dynamic stress: As a keycap, the material must exhibit excellent elastic recovery and flexural resistance.
Solution Development: The technical team has specifically developed TA80A-WD-ANBJ modified material—a high-performance TPE/TPU material designed exclusively for PC encapsulation applications.
III. Solution: TA80A-WD-ANBJ High-Flow Coating Material
The TA80A-WD-ANBJ material perfectly addresses the technical challenges mentioned above, and its core advantages include:
Outstanding encapsulation performance: A specially optimized formulation ensures exceptionally strong chemical adhesion to PC (and ABS) substrates, guaranteeing a robust encapsulation interface and fundamentally eliminating the risk of cracking.
Outstanding high-temperature resistance: The material exhibits excellent thermal stability and maintains its shape without deformation both after injection molding at 200℃ and under high-temperature conditions.
Extremely high flowability: A melt index of 36 g/10 min (5 kg, 190℃) ensures rapid mold filling, making it easy to process complex and intricate keycap structures, thereby improving production efficiency and yield.
Outstanding mechanical performance: With a hardness of 80 Shore A, it offers a crisp and responsive tactile feel; a tensile elongation at break of up to 600% and a tear strength of 40 kN/m ensure the keys have an exceptionally long service life.
IV. Implementation Process and Outcomes
Sample verification: The customer used TA80A-WD-ANBJ material to produce a PC injection-molded prototype with rubber coating.
Performance meets specifications: Test samples demonstrate that this material provides excellent encapsulation performance, with the soft rubber tightly bonded to the PC housing. After molding, the buttons underwent repeated pressing tests and showed no cracking or permanent deformation whatsoever, fully meeting the design requirements.
Successful import: The TA80A-WD-ANBJ has smoothly passed verification and has been put into mass production. With its stable performance and high processing efficiency, it meets customers’ comprehensive requirements for product reliability and cost control.
V. Conclusion
In this case, the TA80A-WD-ANBJ material successfully addressed the stringent requirements of electronic keypads regarding PC encapsulation strength, fatigue life, and processing efficiency. With its reliable encapsulation performance, high fluidity, resistance to high-temperature deformation, and outstanding dynamic mechanical properties, this material has become an ideal choice for encapsulated keypad applications, highlighting the critical value of customized material solutions in enhancing the reliability of electronic components.
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