How are silicone rubber products made?
In daily life, we can often see silicone rubber products as small as mobile phone cases and as large as car tires, but are you curious about how they are made? Although there are many types, the production process is similar. Today The editor will tell you about popular science
Silicone rubber products
The first is to prepare the raw materials. Raw rubber is the most basic, followed by auxiliary materials used to improve certain properties of the product (such as acid and alkali resistance, insulation, flame resistance), and finally fiber and metal materials used to limit product variants, although there are only a few materials , But the amount of each raw material is very particular, which is also the key to testing the experience level of workers.
The second step is plasticizing. Because raw rubber is elastic, it is not conducive to processing, and plasticizing is the process of making raw rubber plastic.
Silicone rubber material mixing machine
The third step is mixing. We often hear that products must have chemical resistance, oil resistance, flame resistance, insulation, etc. These properties are obtained by adding auxiliary materials in this step (such as flame retardants, antistatic agents, fillers, etc.). The specific method is to mix the plasticized raw rubber with the compounding agent, put it in the rubber mixing machine and stir, so that the compounding agent and raw rubber are fully and evenly mixed together. Mixing is an important process in the production process. Uneven mixing of raw rubber and compounding agents after refining will eventually affect the performance of the product.
The fourth step is shaping. This step is to see that you actually see the silicone rubber products. There are many molding methods, such as: compression molding, extrusion molding, injection molding, and calendering molding. Because the content is too much, the space is limited and too professional, please Everyone on Baidu,
Silicone Rubber Products Workshop
The fifth step is vulcanization. Vulcanization is to add some vulcanizing agent like sulfur to the semi-finished product and heat it at a set temperature. Finally, it will be transformed into a flexible process. It should be noted that insufficient or long vulcanization time will affect the performance of the product.
The last step is inspection, including visual inspection (whether there are burrs/flaws), size inspection (whether the size is correct), performance test (whether it has chemical resistance, oil resistance, flame resistance, insulation, etc.)