Material choice is crucial to the performance of companies’ products in the plastics industry.
For the last 55 years, Nylon (or polyamides) has flourished mostly due to the cost/ performance ratio and blend of properties. There are two general types of nylon: those prepared from a diamine and a diacid (nylon 66) and those prepared from an amino acid or amino acid derivative (nylon 6).
Nylons broad processing range allows fabrication by almost all of the common thermoplastic processes, including extrusions (tubing, monofilament, pipe and profile,sheet blown and cast film, extrusion coating, and wire and cable jacketing), injection molding, thermoforming, extrusion blow molding, and rotational molding.
Nylon's Advantages:
- Unique combination of properties including low cost, compressive strength, good friction coefficient;
- It has replaced metal in many applications used in the engineering industry because of relatively high tensile, compressive and load bearing strengths combined with low coefficient of friction. Which allows for a long-wearing mechanical part which requires lower maintenance than a similar metal part;
- Nylon can withstand high temperatures, and has the ability to be cast in large parts and near net shapes to reduce machining costs and material waste;
- It is versatile and has an outstanding mechanical properties that allow it to be used in structural, bearing, and wear applications;
- It has great resiliency and wear resistance. For example nylon will deform under load but return to its original shape easier than other materials.