Flexible Solutions

NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association), UL (Underwriters Laboratories), CSA (Canadian Standards Association), & IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission)—if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by enclosure standards, our third blog from the Enclosure Institute™ is your go-to resource. 

With so many standards guiding performance, safety, and environmental protection, it can be difficult to know which ones truly matter for your application.  Whether you're designing for industrial environments, outdoor use, or specialized equipment, understanding these standards is critical—and easier than you think.

Disclaimer: The Enclosure Institute™ is a free educational resource created by Marian, Inc. and Rogers Corporation to help engineers navigate enclosure sealing with expert guidance.

What exactly are enclosures—and why does sealing matter so much? In this foundational blog from the Enclosure Institute™, we break down the role of enclosures across a range of industries, from EV charging to medical devices. 

Sealing challenges can make or break the performance of an enclosure. That’s why Marian and Rogers Corporation have teamed up to launch the Enclosure Institute™ —a free educational series designed to help engineers tackle real-world sealing challenges with confidence. 

Silicone rubber materials and some plastic films have chemically inert and non-porous surfaces, which equates to low surface energy. This means they have a weak molecular bonding force making it difficult to create a bond with many pressure sensitive adhesives.

Per the Rogers Corporation Website, Rogers “BISCO^® HT-800 Medium Cellular Silicone offers the lightness of foam with the enhanced sealing capabilities of sponge rubber.” In this post, we'll dive a little deeper into this excellent material.

Silicone Rubber, a "Low Surface Energy" Elastomer - What Does This Mean?

Silicone is a high-performance elastomer with the ability to withstand extreme temperatures, both high and low. It also naturally repels, which makes it an excellent choice for a water seal or a moisture barrier. However, this also makes silicone tricky to bond to other surfaces.

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.

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.

Video Demo: Thermal Resistivity and Conductivity of Silicone Foam

Thermal resistivity and thermal conductivity can be two very important physical features of foam materials for certain applications. Most devices containing electronic components must be designed to deal with heat in one way or another. Electronic circuitry operates most reliably at lower temperatures. High operating temperatures decrease the service life of the device or module. It is critical for designs to either conduct or isolate heat away from delicate components to ensure ideal operating temperatures.

When choosing a foam for a product design, one feature that should be considered is the compression set resistance of the foam. C-Set is one of the most important characteristics to consider, and this blog post answers three basic questions to explain why.