SOLVENT CEMENTING AND ADHESIVE BONDING OF FOAMS

This brief summary report describes the state of the art of all types of cellular materials, particularly plastics and elastomers. The report is organized in the form of a handbook and has an Introduction and sections on Types of Foams (Cellular Materials), Methods of Manufacture, Foam Properties, Solvent Cementing and Adhesive Bonding of Foams, Methods of Making Foams Conductive, and Applications. There are two Appendices, one on Standardization Documents (Test Methods, Practices and Specifications) and the other on Definitions. 

When two dissimilar plastic foams are to be joined, which is rarely done, adhesive bonding is generally preferable because of solvent and polymer incompatibility problems. Solvents used to cement plastics should be chosen with approximately the same solubility parameter (5) as the plastic to be bonded. The solubility parameter is the square root of the cohesive energy density (CED) of the liquid solvent or polymer. CEDs of organic chemicals are primarily derived from the heat of vaporization and molecular volume of the molecules, and are expressed as calories per cubic centimeter (cal/cm ). Literature sources provide data on 6 s of a number of plastics and resins (2) (3) (4). 

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