Heat shrinkable products are typically used to insulate, terminate, splice or bundle cables. They are also used to provide mechanical, environmental and corrosion protection as well as moisture sealing.
These products can be found in all major industries, such as automotive & transportation, electronics, power distribution, wire & cable, appliances, construction and many other markets.
Heat shrinkable products used for technical applications need to be crosslinked in order to improve properties such as continuous operating temperature, chemical resistance, ESCR and so on.
During the manufacture of Shrinkable products, the hot tubing coming out of the extruder die is delivered to a cooling and calibration system in order to stretch polymeric chains and to freeze them into the right shape. A take-off device removes the tubing from the cooling system and delivers it to a winder, where it is wound on spools.
The crosslinking reaction occurs after the preliminary product shape has been formed, but before the mechanical and thermal operations that are used to impart 'stretched' dimensions to the article.
Since silane crosslinking technology allows the greatest process flexilility, it appears as the best choice for the this kind of application.
The selection of the right silane crosslinking system needs to integrate many parameters including processing conditions, end product performance, safety and environmental issues and crosslinking conditions in order to optimise cost and performance. In this application, Shrinking temperature is key.
