TDM-Seals project underway
Friday, 15 March 2013
The British Plastics Federation (BPF) is amongst a consortium of 10 partners from across Europe participating in a project called TDM-SEALS, which has received funding from the EU’s FP7 mechanism. The project, led by the Spanish research organisation ‘Instituto Tecnologico De Aragon (ITA)’, will develop cost-effective, low friction seals by ‘Texturing During Moulding’ technology. This 3 year project will run until 2015.
The project consortium, which includes a number of respected research houses, SME’s and Associations, will dedicate 3 years towards developing higher performance, “zero-leak” seals. Aside the BPF, the project consortium also includes three SME associations – PLASTIPOLIS (France), SPIF (Sweden) and ASSOCOMAPLAST (Italy), three SMEs – MIJU (Spain), DMX (France) and BARBIERI (Italy) - and three research centres - Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany), INSPIRALIA (Spain) and ITA (Spain).
The aim of TDM-SEALS is the development of a novel process for surface texturing of plastic and rubber seals, designed to reduce the friction of the seal, which does not imply the need of expensive post-treatments but, on the contrary, is integrated during the moulding process (“Texturing During Moulding”) Furthermore, the production process for surface textured seals will be optimised by reducing the production-cycle time related to the de-moulding difficulties.
1) Cost effective production mechanism for the fabrication of moulded seals with a reduction (>20%) in their
dynamic friction;
2) Reduce production costs related to the de-moulding process, by developing ceramic coatings that reduce (>30%) the adherence elastomer-mould;
3) Affordable low-friction sealing solutions that decrease their operational cost;
4) Affordable sealing solutions that reduce their energy consumption;
5) Affordable sealing solutions with enhanced tribological properties, reducing the risk of leakages.
The projects website can be viewed here – www.tdm-seals.eu - including all links to the project partners.
ENDS
For all media enquiries relating to TDM Seals, please contact Tim Marsden; [email protected] or +44 207 457 5000
Notes for editors:
- The funding leading to the results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under contract number 298647.
The objectives for the project include the following:
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