February, 26, 2015 -. KRAIBURG TPE will be exhibiting at this year’s NPE 2015 trade show - booth S18133 located in the South Hall - featuring innovative products and services dedicated fully to the guideline concept of “custom-engineered TPE – and more”.

KRAIBURG TPE has developed and produced soft, elastic thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) since 1984. Marketing under the THERMOLAST® brand name, the company supplies a wide range of compounds for a variety of end-use markets and applications including custom-engineered solutions. According to the company, a complete new surface feel experience with excellent chemical resistance, can be found under their brand COPEC®. KRAIBURG's For-Tec E compounds are a solution for chemical resistance and adhesion properties on PA 6.6 and many aromatic polyamides. In addition, KRAIBURG TPE offers a range of support services including design and production consulting and logistics support (just-in-time delivery). Following its motto “custom-engineered TPE and more”, the company has rapidly become one of the world's leading suppliers of TPE compounds. “Today we have customized series compounds for a variety of applications and can provide support to our customers worldwide in product development, design and supply chain procedures. If required, we can develop concepts, implement and supply the top TPE compound in each case, while tapping into specific customer applications for soft, elastic TPE compounds", commented CEO Franz Hinterecker.

Global reach, local support

KRAIBURG TPE, with branches in Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Hong Kong, has an international presence including manufacturing capabilities in the USA, Germany and Malaysia. “With the recent expansion of our production facility that will reach completion at the end of this year in Buford, GA, we will have additional capacity to cater to our growing customer base and demand. Shortly, we will also announce the incorporation of our Mexico entity, KRAIBURG TPE Mexico S de C.V. de R.L., that will be headed by newly promoted Director, Alberto Oba. This will enable us to serve our customers much more efficiently throughout the region by providing both products and services on a more localized basis”, explained Jeff Frankish, Managing Director for KRAIBURG TPE in the US. In addition to being located close to their customers across the globe, the company’s sales structure is aligned with defined end-use market segments including teams specifically focused around automotive, industrial, consumer and medical applications.

Innovation in TPE Compound Technology

Marketed globally under the THERMOLAST® trade name, compounds developed and marketed by KRAIBURG TPE provide product developers and designers with one of the broadest selections of TPE materials for soft touch, overmolding and sealing applications. In recent months, KRAIBURG TPE has also launched a high flow product line comprised of several products specifically tailored for the automotive market. These materials were precisely design to ease the processing complexities of window encapsulation manufacturing.

Also unique to KRAIBURG TPE is a new generation of high-performance TPEs sold under the HIPEX® trade name. According to the company, HIPEX® compounds offer temperature resistance up to 170°C and chemical resistance to media such as motor oils, fuels or greases - properties that have historically only been achievable with thermoset rubber compounds. This means that users can benefit from lower production and assembly costs by avoiding time-consuming vulcanization and post-production thermal treatments. The range of uses for high-performance TPE compounds includes a wide variety of sealing tasks in aggressive automotive or industrial applications.

TPE’s in Automotive Markets Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPE’s) are part of the products we use in our daily lives . They are in our cars’ cup holders, air-guide systems, window seals and in other numerous automotive interior, exterior and under the hood components. TPE’s can also be found in the window trim of the automotive industry. They are used as the seal layer in the front quarter windows, rear door fixed glass as well as the rear quarter lights of automobiles.

New custom high-flow materials formulated by KRAIBURG TPE have benefited the automotive manufacturing process. The development of these materials allow the TPE to fill the mold cavity with even pressure thus permitting for consistent gloss on the show surface of the part. There have always been comparisons among TPE’s, TPV (vulcanized thermoplastic) and PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride). KRAIBURG TPE’s typically help increase the molder’s profitability because they yield reduced cycle time, reduced scrap, reduced off gassing and simply are easier to process.

In the same manner, KRAIBURG High Flow TPE’s generally process at a lower temperature than typical Olefin based TPV materials. This allows for quicker molding cycles as the material does not need to cool as much prior to part ejection. This benefit also allows for energy reduction as the injection molding process operates at lower temperatures.

The most important goal in injection molding for window encapsulation is to maintain the internal cavity pressure as low as possible to prevent the glass from breaking. Recently, the industry trend has become to move to laminated glass. Laminated glass consists of two pieces of glass with a membrane in the middle. This type of glass is more prone to breakage so high flow compounds are even more vital when using this glass technology.

In the same manner, KRAIBURG TPE’s have been formulated to have less off gassing than competitive grades. This enables the process to once again run longer without having to have the mold cavity surface clean. This is a major cost advantage that is often not realized when only reviewing material on price alone. Lastly, these grades were developed with very low specific gravity, generally 0.93g/cm3, while commonly used PVC has a typical density of 1.40g/cm3. A typical design for a rear quarter light window has a material volume of 300g/cm3. Using the density values of 1.40/cm3 for PVC and 0.93/cm3 for TPE results in a weight savings of 141 grams per window. This results in vehicle weight saving of over 282 grams (0.63lbs.)

Automobile OEM’s are always seeking new ways to improve vehicle mileage by reducing the vehicle weight, these materials aid to accomplish just that

About KRAIBURG TPE

KRAIBURG TPE (www.kraiburg-tpe.com) is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of soft, elastic thermoplastic elastomers. In addition to custom solutions, under the THERMOLAST® brand the company offers a broad spectrum of standardized compounds covering a wide range of applications. With its high-performance HIPEX® compound, KRAIBURG TPE is opening up the world of rubber for all thermoplastics processing companies and with the new compounds COPEC® and For-Tec E is entering new dimensions in terms of haptics, adhesion and resistance for consumer electronics products. KRAIBURG TPE has production sites in Germany, USA and Malaysia. The sales organization covers France, Italy, Poland, Spain, China, India, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil and Mexico. In further countries KRAIBURG TPE is represented by distributors. Overall, the company employs around 464 people with 2014 sales of 138 million euros worldwide.

Source: Kraiburg TPE