Foams types and their applications

Foam is made by trapping pockets of gas in solid or liquid .In most of the foams the gas volume is large and it is separated by the thin film of solid or liquid. The solid foam can come in two main divisions, that is open cell foam and closed cell foams. In the open cell foam, the gas pockets are connected with each other, while in closed cell foam, the gas pockets are surrounded by solid material. The best example of the open cell foam is bath sponge, through which water can flow easily. A mat used for camping is the example of closed cell foam. The pockets of the gas are sealed from each other, so that the water cannot enter the mat.

Applications of the foam

The liquid foam is used in fire extinguishers, specially the foam that is used to control oil fires. The bread, which we eat, is also form of foam, where the yeast causes the tiny bubbles of foam to come to surface and raises the level of the bread.

Solid foams are class Foam Machine Manufacturer in India of lightweight engineering material .These type of foam can be classified into two types by the porosity of foams .The two types are open cell foam and closed cell foam. Because of connectivity of gas pockets in the open cell foams, the foam always has soft feel. Rubber is open cell foam. The open cell foam can be easily filled with the air or water .When it is filled with air, the insutlation properties comes into the foam and when it is filled with water, the insulation properties are reduced.

The closed cell foam has strength because of their compressed nature. The closed cell foam is denser and comparatively is expensive to make. This foam can be filled with specialized gas to improve their insulation capacity. They also have higher strength and low moisture absorption capacity. Both open cell foam and closed cell foam are used as core material in sandwich structured composite materials.

Syntactic foams are Foam Machine Manufacturer India the special foam which is class of closed cell foam. It contains hollow particles embedded in matrix material. The spheres are made from several materials like glass, polymer and ceramics. The major advantage of the syntactic foam is that they have high strength to weight ratio, which makes them ideal for deep and space applications. Integral skin foam has high density skin and low density core .This foam can be formed by open mold process or closed mold process.