Articles

As you scan the skyline of today’s cities, the effects of a little known hero are everywhere. Modern buildings with huge expanses of glass reflect the blue sky and clouds above while offering a sense of openness in a once oppressive concrete jungle. While the lion is the recognized king of the jungle, adhesives and sealants are the unsung heroes of modern metropolitan architecture. Structural glazing attaches glass to a building under high wind and stress loads, yet the adhesives and sealants that strengthen and empower the structure remain unseen – and seldom recognized.

As procedures and devices in the medical and surgical field have become increasingly more sophisticated, so too have the adhesives used in these applications. Recent developments in patient-applied adhesives are aiding wound care and healing, drug delivery, and recovery after surgery, while advances in the medical device arena are leading to improved device manufacture, better quality control and more functional devices. Although many of these advances are market-driven, adhesives manufacturers are also working diligently behind the scenes to add more value and functionality to their products — thereby helping to create the technologies of the future.

Machinery designers and technicians have always faced the problem of fitting assemblies to minimize the inner space that allows leaking and moving of apparently tight parts. Inner space includes the clearance that exists between threaded assemblies and the unfilled space in press fits. The amount of metal-to-metal contact between threads and heavy press fits varies between 20 and 30 percent of the total area involved, which means that 70 to 80 percent is do-nothing space. Shifting threads and fretting cylindrical fits will loosen, leak, and allow parts to fail catastrophically. Machinery adhesives help solve problems of mechanical failures caused by the clearance between close fitting parts in assemblies. Parts are “locked” in place to avoid loosening caused by common vibration. Adhesives are commonly used in various mechanical applications, including threadlocking, sealing pipe threads, gasketing, retaining cylindrical metal assemblies, and flange coupling.