The Performance of Foam Stability

Did you know….Mix ratio is so important when it comes to ensuring your product performs exactly the way you require. It is also critical to ensure the dimensional stability of foams.

The performance of foam can be affected by the environment, temperature and other external factors. Our technical department was recently contacted by one of our customers to assist in solving a production issue.

The problem was shrinking foam. Our technical specialists held a meeting with the customer’s production and quality teams to assess the situation and determine the root cause. Following a detailed review several foam samples were sent to the Pacific Urethanes Technical Centre in Dandenong South.

It was identified that cold temperatures could severely affect the flow of rising foam. This leads to lower densities and stretching to the end of the rise. As the parts were manufactured in the middle of winter a variation in foam stability was identified. However, this was not their only issue.

Further investigation revealed that calibration of their machinery potentially played a role in the foam’s stability. Their high-pressure machine had not been correctly calibrated for several years. We were again in a unique position to offer prompt and crucial expert advice to our customer.

Our machinery specialist was sent to train their production staff in calibrating their high-pressure Hennecke OMS dispensing machine. The re-calibration identified that the mix ratio was indeed incorrect with a variance of over 10%. Further, he was able to reprogram our customer’s machine to balance the shot times and outputs for all their production programs.

At Pacific Urethanes we are more than just a chemical supplier. We partner with our customers on ‘end to end’ solutions, providing them with all the tools they need to use our products to their full potential. Using our extensive knowledge of dispensing equipment and polyurethane processing, we ensure that our customers are always performing at full capacity

Pacific Urethanes prides itself as a leader in the Australian market in the highly specialised field of polyurethane.

Pacific Urethanes are the Polyurethane Formulation Specialists.