Investigations into the weldability of fluoropolymers

摘要

Fluoroplastics are high-performance thermoplastic materials with properties to be highlighted in the field of the chemical resistance and ageing stability across a wide temperature range. Because of these advantages, these materials are being used increasingly in the chemical industry, in the food industry, in apparatus and tank construction as well as in the semiconductor and electrical industries. Because of the complexity of the installations, it is necessary to join the fluoroplastics in a material-locking form with corresponding joining processes.However, information about the reliable execution and testing of welded joints between fluoroplastics has been available to the user in isolated cases only until now. Therefore, fundamental investigations into the weldability of two fluoropolymers relevant in practice were conducted within the framework of a research project. The investigations focus on infrared welding and high-speed hot gas welding. In this respect, emphasis is placed on the subsequent mechanical testing of the welds in order to characterise the weld quality. Finally, a suitable test procedure for the better assessment of the welded joints was derived from this.