Synthetic Rubber Types

          Nowadays there are many different synthetic rubbers existing in the rubber processing industry other than natural rubber as previously mentioned. Among them some of commonly used types are mentioned here.

• Poly Isoprene Rubber (IR)

Dirt content is low compared to the natural rubber and the color is comparatively good because of the low level of impurities. Even though this contains isoprene the curing time is long as absents of natural non rubber accelerators. 

• Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR)

It contains 75-77% butadiene and 23-25% styrene. SBR has low strength due to crystallinity of styrene and has low flexibility due to phenol group. Its weather resistance is good since fewer amounts of unsaturated double bonds.

• Isoprene Isobutylene Rubber (IIR)

IIR is mostly used in membranes and tube manufacturing because it has very law gas permeability. Not only that it has good weather resistance, insulation properties, shock absorption properties. It’s curing time also high.  

• Ethylene Propylene Rubber (EPR)

Sulfur(S) vulcanization can’t be done in EPR. But in some cases monomers like EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) is added to perform sulfur vulcanization. EPR is generally used in outdoor applications and shipping industry as it has good weather and heat resistance.

• Acrylonitrile Butadiene Rubber (NBR)

NBR is a polar rubber which is specially used to produce horses, oil seals, printing rollers and customized products etc. It can be blend with PVC to enhance flame retardant properties. S vulcanization also can be done.

 

• Silicon Rubber (SI)

 SI is an inorganic rubber with inorganic backbone. It is mainly used in manufacturing surgical gloves, by pass valves etc. Its weather resistance and thermal stability is very good.   

• Chloroprene Rubber (CR)

Because of its chlorine (Cl) contain monomer it has high flame retardant property. Sulfur vulcanization can’t be done for it.  CR is also polar rubber. It has good resistance for petroleum oils.

Mold and die design software

    Computer Aided Engineering gives several advantages over traditional method of designing molds and dies for polymer products. Generally quality problems in polymer products are arise with the molding defects. Those problems can be reduced by optimizing the design of mold and by optimizing the processing conditions. To minimize those effects now mold and die design software can use in different ways. Some of mold and design software available in the market are listed below with small descriptions as it can be important. 

     Specifications and some information of them can be updated with the time (source is WWW).    

SolidWorks Plastics

SolidWorks Plastics is a mold design validation tool that was built into a solid modeling environment. It enables mold designers to quickly and easily validate whether a plastic injection-molded part can be filled. This is developed by Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp.

SolidWorks MoldBase

SolidWorks MoldBase is also developed by Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. It is a catalog of standard mold base assemblies and components. The package enables designers to generate a completely assembled mold base.

Autodesk® Simulation Moldflow®

This is a plastic injection moulding simulation software provides tools that help manufacturers to validate and optimize the design of plastic parts and injection moulds by predicting the plastic injection moulding process with accuracy. 

MoldWorks

This is a 3D solid based mold design package which is developed by R&B Ltd from Israel. MoldWorks is seamlessly integrated with SolidWorks software, allowing the full use of SolidWorks modeling capabilities to quickly create mold tools. It has complete design environment which allows not only building the mold base, but also to create the detailed mold tool, modifying components and plates, check collisions, and output BOM and CNC data using menus suited to the mold design industry.

SplitWorks

SplitWorks is a revolutionary new product, using advanced technology to automate the process of core and cavity separation and creation. It can analyze the part model which is design by SolidWorks and then display a color coated preview of the part, show the potential core, cavity, zero draft angle surfaces, and surfaces that belong to both the core and the cavity, according to the selected splitting direction. It also enables to easily creating, side cores, pins and electrodes

Expert Mold Designer-S (XMD-S)

XMD-S™ is an automated knowledge-based mold design solution capable of providing a preliminary mold design in minutes. That software is developed by Cornerstone Intelligent Software Corp in Canada

SolidCAM

This is a product of InventorCam. SolidCAM allowing CAM programmers to use the CAD system they already have to program their CNC machines as it has higher possible level of integration

Pro/ENGINEER Tool Design Option (TDO)

This is a 3D CAD tool for professional designers who need to rapidly create higher quality mold inserts, casting cavities, and patterns.

Moldex3D R12

This product is developed by Moldex3D and it maximizes the success potential with new capabilities and features like faster model repair workflow, dynamic molding process supports, and continuous efforts on prediction and optimization enhancements.

dieCAS^® 

dieCAS^® software is for process modeling and analysis of die casting and related processes, including permanent mold, semi-permanent mold, and squeeze casting.

CimatronE MoldDesign

This software includes all the applicative tools that mold makers need to get the job done right the first time, including highly flexible mold base configuration, powerful tools for designing runners, ejectors, and cooling systems, automatic creation of pockets for inserts and smart component positioning and manipulation.