Custom Urethanes for A Different Set of Standards
When compared to other elastomers, there is no better way to upgrade than by making the switch to polyurethane. Urethanes offer superior strength, longevity, and even dimensional accuracy when needed. So, when no standard urethane product is quite the right fit for your application, what more can you do?
At PSI Urethanes, we engineer custom polyurethane solutions for applications where the standard formulations just won’t cut it. To provide unparalleled elastomer strength, to meet your tightest tolerances, to employ the highest product quality and solve your toughest engineering challenges, a custom polyurethane formulation may be exactly what you need.
How Does PSI Urethanes Make Custom Parts?
A huge proponent of creating custom cast urethane parts is being able to seamlessly procure custom molds. It is common practice for other facilities to outsource the creation of these molds, which increases product development time along with production and transportation costs.
PSI Urethanes does things differently: thanks to our on-site machine shop, we can create unique molds for custom urethane products regardless of the final part’s production volume. Both automated and manual CNC mills and lathes give us the capability to bring nearly any mold design to life.
Once the production volume has been established and the design has been finalized, we create the custom mold for your product in our workshop. This translates to quicker lead times, reduced production costs, and an elimination of transportation costs for our customers as we can complete all necessary molding and casting operations under one roof.
The most important part in ensuring that the finished part demonstrates all of the desired properties is by carefully developing a custom urethane formulation. We start by selecting a formulation from a set list that we use as a springboard for further customizations. We carry a broad variety of ester and ether resins in house that can be used to synthesize the wanted physical features in our urethanes, although some custom formulations require us to special order different additives. Some of these include other resins, graphite, and carbon nanotubes.
Interested in a custom urethane formulation for your next project?
Contact PSI Urethanes to get a quote today!
Contact Us
Custom Engineered Physical Properties
The intended application of your custom urethane part will determine which physical properties should be emphasized in its unique formulation. Some of the features we can adjust include compression, elongation, tear resistance, tensile strength, and static dissipation.
Compression refers to the amount of deflection a urethane part can withstand before undergoing any degree of irreversible plastic deformation. If a part will be subjected to repeated, sustained, or heavy impacts, the compression set of the urethane will need to be adjusted to allow for a suitable amount of flexion.
The next feature we can customize is elongation, which is the amount of length that urethane can stretch before it fails. This can be minimized or maximized depending on which would better suit the application.
Tear resistance is urethane’s ability to undergo tension without forming nicks or tears. Similar to elongation, the customization of this feature depends very highly on the conditions and daily wear that the part will be subjected to.
Tensile strength is the amount of force required to pull a piece of urethane entirely apart. While it may seem almost identical to elongation and tear resistance, there are key differences between the three. Elongation refers to the change in length the material can undergo; and tear resistance involves the creation of faults in a single piece of material, not the separation of the material into two distinct pieces.
Lastly, static dissipation is the most unique feature of urethane that can be customized. Most elastomers including our standard urethane formulations are electrical insulators, meaning that they do not allow the free flow of electrons throughout the material. By adding electrically conductive carbon nanotubes to a urethane mixture, we can imbue the material with static dissipative properties that would otherwise be impossible to achieve in such an effective way. Carbon nanotubes are able to disperse themselves evenly throughout the urethane part and create a network to allow flow of electricity across the whole object. This can be incredibly useful in applications like robotics, telecommunications, electronics, and more.
Specialty Multi Durometer Urethanes
Another customization option that is unique to urethanes is our ability to incorporate multiple formulations layered onto a single part. This is most commonly used for rollers and wheels, where the core of the part is made of high durometer for stability and toughness while the contact surface is covered in a low durometer urethane to increase the roller’s grip.
Dual durometer urethanes also serve as a preferred liner material for highly abrasive environments like sand blasting cabinets. When formulating custom urethanes, nearly every feature even down to the material color can be selected. Some customers are taking advantage of this by utilizing urethane sheets with two different colors to act as a wear indicator: as the contact surface is worn away the color underneath will begin to show through, indicating that a replacement will soon be needed.
These uses are just the beginning of multi layer durometer capabilities. In one case we’ve produced multi durometer padding for a press application, where a low durometer contact surface was utilized to help keep material from moving when being pressed. Although we’ve not yet seen this, a urethane with carbon nanotubes could be layered on top of a plain urethane to create a part with a conductive surface and an insulated core. Our customization capabilities allow our customers to get incredibly creative with their designs, and our urethane experts develop the best formulas to make their designs a reality in the most cost-effective way possible.
We’re ready to take on your toughest elastomer challenges!
Contact PSI Urethanes to start developing your own custom urethane parts today.
Contact Us
About PSI Urethanes
Since 1966, through our own independent research and activity in the Polyurethane Manufacturers Association, PSI Urethanes has stayed on the leading edge of urethane technology – including developing advances in new materials, comprehensive designs, and processing technologies. Today we are among the most respected and trusted suppliers of custom polyurethane products.
We operate from our 45,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, which houses an extensive stock of polyurethane products. Our fully equipped manufacturing facility includes a versatile range of processing machinery, which allows us to work on unique, one-of-a-kind projects, as well as high volume components. Our in-house engineering, tooling, and custom mold shop, produces custom and stock production orders with exceptionally fast turn-around times. From conception to prototyping, to final production runs, our technical representatives and design engineers will work closely with your staff to meet your critical tolerances and specifications. You are guaranteed to receive experienced, professional, and personalized service from the first contact through your on-time delivery, with complete confidentiality and dedication to protecting your good name.