Applications

Material Handling Rollers

Design Problem:
Today's material handling systems use metal rollers that are loud, heavy, and energy inefficient. They require noise abatement systems that add overall system cost.
The Polygon® Solution:
The CFT™ material increases the overall roller durability, increases the rollers ability to handle repeated impact loading, has inherent abrasion resistance, lowers the moment of inertia for the roller system, and reduces the energy required to move packages.

 

Tool Handle

Design Problem:
Conventional FRP tool handles are not ideal solutions for the tool handle market they degrade due to UV exposure, have poor cosmetics and shatter upon impact or repeated stresses.
The Polygon® Solution:
CFT™ materials offer significantly increased toughness and durability (twice the transverse strength of FRP pultrusions), they eliminate UV degradation issues, are able to be post-formed for ergonomics, can have attachments joined, and can have co-extruded handle materials.

 

High Performance Tent

Design Problem:
High performance tent applications require materials that have excellent spring retention, are durable and can be easily fastened and joined. Many tent and recreational equipment designers resort to traditional FRP materials that are not durable and have poor fastening/joining capability.
CFT™ Solution:
A CFT™ profile can offer a design engineer the optimal combination of strength, durability and toughness as well as the ability to complete basic post-forming and joining techniques not currently available to FRP materials.

 

Car Door Systems

Design Problem:
Today's car door materials require complicated molding systems that fall short on the ultimate material expectations that today's automotive engineers would like to have.
The Polygon® Solution:
CFT™ materials offer integrated post-forming capability, excellent impact resistance, and perhaps most importantly, a continuous manufacturing process (not batch), that is more cost effective than traditional FRP molding systems.

 

Energy Management Systems

Design Problem:
Today's engineered thermoplastic materials offer poor energy absorption, and rely on complex mechanical energy management systems to meet today's government impact standards.
The Polygon® Solution:
The next generation of CFT™ materials can be easily incorporated into large molded parts such as bumpers that traditionally have average impact resistance and marginal room for improvement. By adding CFT™ stiffeners the finished bumper offers increased impact resistance, energy absorption and an ability to lower the overall system cost.

 

Stiffners

Design Problem:
Strategically embedding CFT™ reinforcements into an extrusion wall can improve both the performance and lower the overall cost of existing parts.
CFT™ Solution:
In a rectangular profile (2"x 4"x 0.160") where stiffness and cost reduction of the parts are analyzed, four 0.070" diameter CFT™ rod reinforcements are placed in the corners of the profile. While maintaining the same 0.160" wall thickness, the CFT™ reinforcements will increase the stiffness of the profile by 30-45% with minimal increase in cost. With this increase in performance, it is then possible to look at decreasing the wall thickness of the PVC wall to evaluate cost savings. While maintaining the same stiffness of the original PVC extrusion, the CFT™ stiffeners can reduce the weight of PVC used. In the rectangular profile, PVC usage can be decreased over 35%, maintaining the same part stiffness!

 

IDEAS

Potential applications for CFT™ products

Before the advent of CFT™ materials, when design engineers were faced with a problem where metals or engineered thermoplastics were not sufficient, no obvious other alternative presented itself. That is no longer the case. Today, CFT™ materials bridge the gap in many application areas where neither conventional metals or plastics can meet the need. Typical applications where this occurs are areas where strength-to-weight ratios, corrosion resistance, post-forming, joining, or fastening are not currently optimal.

Extrusion Stiffners

Using CFT™ materials as stiffeners within the wall of conventional thermoplastic extrusions is an ideal use of the CFT™'s excellent strength-to-weight ratios, stiffness and durability.

 

Impact Management Systems

The durability, toughness, impact tolerance and energy dissipation of CFT™ materials are ideal for use in designs where the need to combine impact management and conventional strength requirements is a primary design driver.

 

Shapes

CFT™ materials are available not only in simple rod and tube shapes, but also more complex nonsymmetrical shapes that are typically produced with complicated FRP pultrusions and metal or plastic extrusions.

 

Orthotic Inserts

CFT™ materials offer an optimized strength capacity, spring retention, and durability along with an ability to easily post-form the materials in question for customized use by orthotic specialists.

 

Prosthetics

Unlike expensive composite materials currently on the market today, CFT™ materials offer the potential to create similar near net-shape performs with better overall mechanical performance and cost-benefit advantages. The ability to post-form materials and have simple secondary attachment techniques are significant competitive advantages as well.

 

Windshield Wipers

Conventional short and long fiber filled injection molded thermoplastics offer design flexibility for windshield wiper systems, but are not acceptable with respect to long term strength and spring retention. CFT™ materials offer the pricing and performance advantages of thermoplastic materials along with the ability to post-form to the windows contours.

 

Chair Support

Metals are not ideal for many applications where repeated application of stress and strain can result in the support material losing its spring and no longer maintaining the same level of back support. CFT™ materials reduce the overall support weight, are easily post-formable, and can be readily adapted to the fastening and machining requirements for this type of application.

 

Springs

The post-forming capability of CFT™ materials allow a conventional all longitudinal material to be formed into a spring shapes, utilizing the durability and toughness of the CFT™ material. Application possibilities include less dramatic spring shapes such as leaf springs for automotive and golfcar systems as well as vibratory bowl feeders and compound bow limbs.