Materials Prototyping
If you’re trying to push an envelope with your product or design, chances are you’ll need one or more materials that you can’t just get off the shelf. If you’re lucky and you can get it off the shelf, you may still be in trouble – many processors and suppliers don’t have the interest or equipment for small volume runs. To address this common need for small lots of material (on the order of 50 lbs), Bay Materials has small scale equipment suitable for producing small lots, and a family of partner vendors that have synergistic capabilities that also support small lot production quantities.
Bay Materials has equipment to compound or blend polymers, gels, adhesives, or solutions on a small manufacturing scale. Bay Materials can then convert these formulated materials to extruded shapes, films, or compression molded parts for further evaluation. The results from this process are generally much more representative and useful than those from simple lab-scale experiments, but far faster and less expensive than full scale compounding and molding runs.
Bay Materials has over a thousand samples of polymers and formulating ingredients on its shelves so we can start working on material or formulation prototypes right away. We can quickly turn your wants and needs list to a set of quantitative requirements from which to work. You can see and feel how the material behaves in a manner of days. Then with your immediate feedback we’ll be much closer to a final solution.
If you have a specific material in mind, we can work with it. If we don’t have it we’ll get it through our network of suppliers (formal and informal). See our list of in-stock materials, or a list of our current equipment.
Example materials prototyping projects:
Heat Sealable High-Barrier Foil
Objective: Develop a metal foil that could be heat sealed to COC polymer.
Commercial grade materials were screened and found to be unsuitable for the client’s needs. A custom tie layer was developed and solvent coated onto a thin commercial metal foil. This modified foil was suitable for application in the automatic sealing equipment used by the client. Client was delivered production information for the film along with yards of working material.
Polyurethane Fiber Extrusion
Objective: optimize the properties and dimensions of a specialty high cost thermoplastic polyurethane.
The client needed long lengths of a special grade urethane for product prototyping. Small quantities were used in our smallest extruder to prepare samples in various diameters, shapes, and quench conditions from a minimal amount of material (<2 lb) in multiple extrusion trials.
Super soft tip for medical device
Objective: develop a transparent, soft, flexible tip for a device in contact with patients’ oral cavity.
Medical grade materials were screened for performance. The part was designed in-house and a molder identified and collaborated with to make the low-durometer, difficult to mold/eject parts. Parts meeting the requirements were delivered to the client for working prototypes
