If abrasion resistance, chemical resistance, seal effect and highest strain values without tearing are required, TPU is the answer. The benefits of thermoplastic urethanes are beyond doubt and cannot be achieved by other polymers in many respects.

Those who have already processed a soft TPU know that processing and demoulding can be a challenge for both man and machine. Especially with changes in wall thickness and areas that are hard to demould, demoulding can become an art in itself. Remedial measures like blowing out or mould release agents are sometimes of little help.

Working with TPU, changes in wall thickness often lead to sink marks or out-of-round parts. If plane parallelism or concentricity is required, the user may very well despair of the material as high shrinkage and difficult processing of a conventual TPU can be counterproductive.

Here, Bada AG’s new development comes in. A new product group of TPUs filled with newly developed and especially compatibilized glass beads make these grades behave like a conventional TPU in terms of strain values and flexibility. When it comes to moulding, these types are vastly superior to conventional TPU in terms of processing, shrinkage, sink marks and demoulding and all this at an economically more attractive price. In addition, the well-known stickiness of soft TPUs also decreases. Suddenly, tool handles with TPU as handle material are much more comfortable to hold and this with the same chemical and oil resistance.

You will find both the advantages and disadvantages visualized in the attached diagram.

Have we piqued your interest? In addition to the stated advantages, Bada AG has the expertise to supply readily coloured products. Thus, machine handles and components can be processed readily coloured in opaque or translucent colours. Attached you will find a photo of a type in shore hardness 80A with 20% glass beads coloured in several customer-specific colours.

...para estas Fiestas Navideñas y Año Nuevo, les agradecemos sinceramente su inestimable colaboración y nos alegrará enormemente poder continuar desarrollando proyectos comunes en el 2020.

Since the motor of electric and hybrid vehicles is operated with up to 600 V or soon 1000 V AC, color coding of the corresponding components makes sense and the industry has agreed on using the warning color “high-voltage orange” according RAL2003 in hybrid - and electric cars for this reason.

While a RAL2003 color can be adjusted quite easily in "simple" compounds, the situation changes with more complex material systems. If high filler levels, flame retardants, stabilizers or impact modifiers are required, adjusting the "high voltage orange" color is a challenge. Interaction with certain additives or simply the over-coloring of the filler component require a wide know-how in the field of coloring. Also critical is the stability against heat aging, because especially in the drivetrain environment increased temperatures prevail due to higher energy density.

For housings, connectors and plugs, Bada has developed the PA66-based, UL-listed Compound Badamid UL A703 GF30 FR HF orange, whereby the glass fiber content can be varied in the range of 20-35%.

For the same applications but higher service temperatures, Bada offers solutions based on high temperature polyamides, e.g. PPA-HT GF30 FR HF orange. This compound is also additionally flame retardant according to UL94-V0.

If a better conduction of heat is required from the components, for example for housings, the PA6-type Badamid B70 TC S2 is available in orange, with a thermal conductivity of about 1.2 W / m * K.

For rigid cable ducts with snap-in hooks on the device, the tough-modified Badamid B70 GF15 TM-Z2 orange was developed, with a good compromise on stiffness and flexibility.

A unique material on the market to Bada´s knowledge is the UL-listed, flame-retardant thermoplastic elastomer Badaflex UL TPE-S (x) A FR01 orange, available in a hardness range x of 40-90 Shore A. Due to the wide hardness range many applications such as gaskets and cable passages, but also semi-rigid components such as plugs can be realized.

For further customer-specific developments the Bada team of application technology and market development is available at any time - challenge us!

In summer 2019, Bada Hispanaplast expanded its facilities by adding a new laboratory room at its Huesca plant. This laboratory is mainly focused on tests in which there are volatile elements or fumes, such as the analysis of fire-retardant materials, whose demand has been increased in recent years. For this, the laboratory has:

- Extractable test to determine the amount of plasticizer (according to internal methodology)
- Calcination test according to UNE-EN ISO 3451 using a muffle
- Glow wire test, both GWFI and GWIT, according to DIN EN 60695-2-12
- Flammability test according to UL-94 (UNE-EN 60695-11-10)

For this last test, the novelty is the incorporation of a semi-automatic combustion chamber for flammability tests, according to UL94 standards, to avoid the minimum human interference in the measurement process, avoiding human errors, deviations and thus increasing reliability and repeatability in accordance with current regulations.