Flexible Solutions

Technological advances in properties of soft, flexible foam and elastomeric materials have continued. These thick, soft, flexible foams and elastomers like PORON foam, silicone foam, and more are ideal materials for sealing, gasketing and cushioning across many industries and applications.

They compress, form to irregular surfaces, bend, and flex within an application without damage or delamination, but from the perspective of the converter, these materials may also introduce challenges when trying to achieve the tight dimensional tolerances common in metal and plastic-molded parts.

Masking can seem like a "simple" process that is often accomplished with masking tape slit to common widths and applied by hand to protect surfaces from paint, contamination, or damage. Similar to surface protection tapes, masking materials are often discarded long before the final product reaches the customer. So what benefits are seen by changing from rolls of tape to die-cuts specific for your application?

Changes in altitude, humidity, temperature, and atmospheric pressure can cause the internal pressure of a sealed enclosure to increase or decrease significantly. Engineers integrate vents into the design of their enclosures to equalize the pressure and prevent problems such as condensation (and shorting of electronics), fogging, discoloration, leaks (failure of the seal), and other failures. Learn how the help of protective vents can keep these issues from arising.

When selecting a foam for your application, have you ever wondered if open or closed-cell foams are more effective? At Marian, we recommend materials based on a product’s application. This is certainly true when it comes to foam materials for use as gaskets. This means in order to recommend the best material, our first step is to understand the conditions, forces, stress and other requirements the gasket will experience in your application.

We have published a new customer success story! In this story, the customer required a static seal for a navigation module that would be contained and used on the exterior of a recreational vehicle. The exterior navigation/infotainment module would be exposed to outdoor elements including extreme temperature swings, rain, wind, and dust. The gasket was required to reliably perform for the life expectancy of the class A RV. This could be more than 10 years! The customer came to Marian for a solution.

Let's get straight to the point!

Here are 5 reasons you should be prototyping with Marian:

1. Speed-to-prototype and material expertise is part of our culture and business plan. Our experts will start by consulting with you to understand your application and the design of your product. We will then recommend a few materials to test for your application. Provide us with a two-dimensional CAD file of your part, and our teams can quickly get to work on creating your prototype parts.  
2. We stock hundreds of materials that are readily available for prototyping. Having materials readily available allows us to quickly produce prototype parts. Check out our material data sheets page. We keep stock of most of these materials. Material Data Sheets
   

Ever wonder why hospitals, doctor’s offices, and other healthcare providers don’t just use duct tape for bandages, wound care, and device fixation? Well, there are many reasons, but first, try sticking it to the skin and peeling it off. The main reason is simple: duct tape does not use a medical grade pressure sensitive adhesive.

Medical adhesives must be skin-friendly, non-migratory, and have a variable degree of initial tack and peel adhesion. Ease of removal, breathability, and durability also differentiate medical adhesives from other types of tape.

The struggle between the world and electromagnetic interference (EMI) is endless. EMI consistently attempts to sabotage our most critical technologies in the aerospace, mass transit, medical, and military industries.