Flexibility and Strength: Nylon Offers You Both
Nylon might not always be the first material that comes to mind when you think about making parts for compressors and pumps, or military and defense applications … unless you’re working with Pexco.
The world’s first commercially successful version of nylon was created in 1935. Over the decades, it proved to be a lightweight, heavy-duty industrial and engineering plastic replacement for metals resistant to heat and corrosive chemicals. Pexco sees nylon as a fantastic material that offers excellent flexure and bending fatigue strength, which makes it ideal for parts that undergo intermittent loading. With wear resistance far greater than many metals and other thermoplastics and a low coefficient of friction, nylon is ideally suited for use in slides, bearings, and other devices that must stand up to high levels of motion and wear.
Today, a wide range of nylon resin formulations and combinations with other polymers are available, as well as glass-, carbon-, and mineral-reinforced versions. For example, Minlon® mineral-reinforced nylon provides greater dimensional stability and creep resistance than unreinforced nylon and lower warpage than glass-reinforced nylon. As a result, it is popular for use in compressor valves, big industrial parts, and demanding automotive applications.
Pexco has seen nylon applications grow to include a range of fluid-handling pumps to move water, acids, lubricants, solvents, chemicals, and fuels in automotive, military, and aerospace environments. Although pump makers traditionally used various metals for pump housings, shaft guides, impellers, seals, bushings, and other elements, the desire to reduce pump weight and material and processing costs has led many to opt for various nylon formulations. Pexco uses nylon to offer pump makers a combination of physical strength, wear resistance, self-lubrication, and high cost-effectiveness.
Choosing the optimal nylon resin for a pump application depends on several factors, including the levels of pressure, temperature, and speed involved. In addition, the abrasiveness of the liquids or slurries involved, the degree of contamination that can be tolerated, and projected uses for the pump must also be considered.
Nylon’s toughness and elongation properties make it suitable for designs that involve snap-fits or press-fits. Injection-molded nylon parts from Pexco are well-suited to secondary machining processes such as turning, drilling, tapping and grinding, as well as ultrasonic insertion, ultrasonic welding, pad printing, and assembly.
To discover how Pexco is partnering with world-class polymer scientists and industry-leading material suppliers to deliver nylon solutions, visit our website www.pexco.com.