With adhesive products, high-performance and rigidity are often thought to go hand in hand. It is true that the best strength, thermal, chemical, and electrical properties tend to be found in rigid compounds, especially epoxies.
Yet there’s a growing class of adhesives, sealants, and coatings that add ductility to the long list of desirable epoxy properties.
These “toughened” epoxy compounds can be created in a variety of ways. Toughening sometimes involves the incorporation of ductile rubber or thermoplastic materials into epoxy’s normally rigid molecular backbone. These ductile materials may remain in the epoxy compound as distinct phases, absorbing shear, or impact forces.
Carboxylterminated butadiene-acrylonitrile (CTBN) copolymers are one family of ductile materials that Master Bond has used to great advantage in a variety of toughened compounds.
Master Bond is a manufacturer of epoxy adhesives, sealants, coatings, potting, and encapsulation compounds. To learn more about epoxies, download the company’s latest white paper, Epoxy Compounds Get Even Tougher.
Every toughening method has its advantages and disadvantages, but they do address the chief shortcoming of epoxy compounds.
Here are just a few potential toughened epoxy applications…
Because they stand up to challenging cyclic loads and cure with low residual stresses, toughened epoxies are used to bond, seal or encapsulate a wide variety of electronic, optical, and medical components.
Among them are:
• Coils and potentiometers
• Flexible circuits
• Piezoelectric and micro-machined sensors
• Surface mount components
• Heat sinks
• Optoelectronic transceiver modules
• Cable joints and terminations
• Transformers and inductors
• Chip scale packages
• Boroscopes and doublets
• Heating elements
• Low-force gaskets
There are several others, as well.
Learn more here.
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