Thermoplastic foam extrusion technique

Thermoplastic Foam Extrusion. Foamed plastics find applications as rigid profiles, pipe, sheet, packaging material, and thermal insulation. Polystyrene (PS) finds the widest application in foamed products while poly(vinyl chloride) PVC, low-density polyethylene (LDPE), and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) (21) are also used in large quantities. All common thermoplastics can be foamed by various techniques as described hereafter. 

They can be processed by techniques commonly used for thermoplastics, such as extrusion, injection molding, rotational molding, dip, slush molding, and powder and fluidized bed coating,16 and can be expanded into foams.17 Compression and transfer molding of FEP resins can be done, but with some difficulty. Extrusion of PEP is used for primary insulation or cable jackets and for tubing and films. 

Whereas all conventional thermoplastic fabrication techniques have been successfully employed to convert pellets of HIPS into useful articles, extrusion (film, sheet, profile and multi-layer) and injection molding (solid, structural foam and gas-assist) are the predominant processing technologies. Innovative hardware technologies, in both extrusion and injection molding, have provided means to combine less expensive materials, such as polystyrene, with polymers or structures offering key performance characteristics. 

Styrenic Resins Styrenic resins are thermoplastics prepared by firee-radical polymerization of styrene alone or with other unsaturated monomers. The properties of styrenic resins vary widely with molecular structure, attaining the high performance level of engineering plastics. Processed by blow and injection molding, extrusion, thermoforming, film techniques, and structural foam molding. Used heavily for the manufacture of automotive parts. 

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