Adhesive tapes bond to silicone and other hard-to-bond substrates

05 October 2011

Three new lines of 3M adhesive tapes enable OEMs and converters to achieve high bond strengths to silicone, one of the hardest to bond surfaces because of its very low surface energy. 3M Adhesive Transfer Tape 91022 and 3M Double Coated Tape 96042 are designed with a single liner and a high performance adhesive, enabling productivity improvements for users through faster and easier processing.

Meanwhile, 3M Double Coated Tape 9731 is a double lined tape with a silicone coating and an acrylic coating on opposite sides, used for bonding silicone rubber to higher surface energy materials. The adhesive tapes 91022 and 96042 also provide excellent adhesion to other hard-to-bond surfaces, such as leather and silicone rubbers and foams.

Other product features offered by the new tapes include strong damping performance over a broad temperature range.

3m has also released a new VHB Robust Performance (RP) family of acrylic foam tapes. The new range has been developed for those customers who are looking for a high-strength bonding tape as an alternative to mechanical fasteners such as screws, rivets and welds but do not require the higher strength and performance offered by the current 3M VHB tapes line-up.

Unlike screws or rivets, which join materials at a single point, 3M VHB RP Tape permanently adheres one substrate to another while spreading the stress load across the entire length of the joint. Once materials are joined, a virtually indestructible ‘weld’ is created.