Adhesive Tape In Engineering
July 20th, 2009. Published under Science. No Comments.
Engineering isn’t all about nuts and bolts; it is becoming increasingly popular for engineers to use adhesives in constructing anything from car parts to aeroplanes. Developments in the adhesives industry means that products such as adhesive tape have become more reliable than traditional construction methods at holding materials together. We take a look at some of the applications commonly used today to understand the potential of such products.
The drawback of using bolts in fastening objects together is that the materials they are made from can corrode over time and become unreliable. This can be the cause of major accidents as it is not always possible to determine the condition of such products. Because bolts, screws, nails and rivets are individual items, that are often use in their thousands in one construction, the failure of a single component can go unnoticed and yet be the cause of a tragic accident.
Using adhesives on the other hand means that a uniform bond is created, the efficiency of which is universal throughout the construction. Adhesives come in many forms and are made from a wide variety of materials. The effectiveness of a bonding agent depends on the chemical reaction between adhesive and the materials that need bonding. Many people are familiar with the fact that specialist wood glue will not bond plastics for example.
Using ready mixed bonding agents can often be a problem when trying to bond two types of materials, and as such adhesive tapes can be a convenient solution. As tape can be made double sided, it is possible for one side to have the right properties to bond with a material such as glass, and for the other to have properties that bond with UPVC and to be used in the glazing industry, as an example.
Adhesive tapes aren’t just used in construction; there are many other day to day applications for its potential that go virtually unnoticed. A popular adhesive strip used for sealing envelopes has a property known as triboluminescence. This occurs when the bonds in the adhesive are broken, causing a neon glow, a side effect of which is capturing an x-ray image. This was discovered through the development of Scotch Tape, when scientists noticed that an x-ray was produced when triboluminescent activity occurred in a vacuum.
The potential of applications for adhesive tapes in engineering are based on scientific observations. However, the diversity of materials that can be used to create adhesive means that new uses will continue to be discovered and applied within many industries.
Dom Donaldson is an engineering expert.
Find out more about Adhesive Tape at http://www.adhere.co.uk