Foam Types

[Derek S.]

Hello,

i have a customer that has indicated he liked a specific type of foam for this product. however, he neither knows what type of foam it is, nor where it came from. I have not come across this specific type of foam before, and i cannot figure out what kind it is? has anyone seen this type of foam before? i did measure the Shore A durometer to be around 35-40 if that helps at all. it is a firm foam, and acts more like a solid/rubber than a foam, except it permanently deforms from my durometer tester, but not from squeezing it with my fingers. it also has that high scratchy sound that sounds like a polystyrene type foam. Does anybody know what type of foam this is? or even a better way or place to look for different types of foams to check my sample against? Thanks

 

[btrueblood]

You could order a foam sampler from a supply house like McMaster-Carr.

You could go get a polymer lab to do some forensics to determine the material make-up.

You could get your customer to define the characteristics of the material he wants, perhaps even with some quantifiable numbers, and then look for suitable polymers to do the job.

 

[Derek S.]

btrueblood,

thank you for your quick reply, unfortunately I have already compared the foam against a couple foam sampler type of vendor packet and found nothing super similar. the foam is from some obscure vendor somewhere in china, so I don't know how common of a type it is. the only quantifiable metric about this foam that my customer can give me is that wants that exact type of foam :/ I may have to send it out to a materials lab, but I'm still hopeful someone on this forum will have a lead. thanks again for your suggestions.

 

[IRstuff]

Have you eliminated urethanes? They come in a variety of densities

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[Demon3]

Best guess is that it's a polyurethane as IRstuff said. Possibly degraded by e.g. heat which discolored it and made it harder to give that scratching sound you noticed. Can be confirmed relatively cheaply at a lab with FTIR spectroscopy.

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