A component, for example, a shoe foxing, may have one or more regions with embedded particles and one or more regions without embedded particles. The one or more regions without embedded particles may comprise one or more outer surfaces of the component. The component may be formed by heating and pressing material sections in a mold. The component may be formed by extrusion. One or more of the material sections may lack embedded particles.

A spring assembly for a non-rail wheeled or tracked vehicle is provided. The spring assembly includes a piston, and a sleeve with variable thickness. The sleeve is made from an unreinforced synthetic elastomeric material and being free of reinforcing fibers. The sleeve is coupled with a plurality of end components and defines a deformable pressure vessel, and the deformable pressure vessel supplies a support force.

A membrane for an electro-acoustic transducer comprised of at least one elastomer layer made using spray coating of a liquid elastomer solution is provided. The at least one layer of elastomer is made by spraying a liquid elastomer solution, which may comprise a silicone, onto a mold having the desired membrane geometry, allowing the solution to cure and remove the membrane from the mold. The mold can be configured to hold other components of an electro-acoustic transducer that will be attached to the membrane after the curing step.

A resin sheet having hairlike bodies arranged regularly on at least one surface of an underlayer can be manufactured by forming the bodies by: melt extruding, from a die with an extrusion molding method, a thermoplastic resin having, on a log-log graph having elongational viscosity ?(t) (unit: Pa.Math.S) as measured at a strain rate of 0.5 (unit: S?1) and at a temperature at which elongation is possible as the vertical axis and elongation time t (unit: S) as the horizontal axis, a region in which the slope (log ?/log t) in the interval 0.1<t<1.0 is no greater than 0.5 and by the temperature range wherein the adhesive force in probe tack measurement is 0.05-0.25 N/mm2 at least partially overlapping with the temperature at which elongation is possible; and casting using a transfer roll on which a relief process has been performed and a touch roll.

A composition useful for additive manufacturing is comprised of a thermoplastic elastomer blended with an aliphatic polyketone, wherein the thermoplastic elastomer is a continuous phase having dispersed therein separated domains of polyketone. The composition is useful for additive printing methods employing heating and extrusion of the composition to form extrudates that are printed an article comprised of fused layers of the composition. The composition facilitates the formation of extrusion based elastomeric additive manufactured articles.

The present disclosure provides for making annealed additive manufacturing powder, where the powder can be used to make structures using additive manufacturing processes. The additive manufacturing powder can be annealed to improve the flowability of the powder. Once annealed, the powder can be used in the additive manufacturing process and structures can be formed by affixing the powder particles to one another (e.g., by reflowing and re-solidifying a material present in the powder particles). The annealed additive manufacturing powder can be formed in a layer-by-layer additive process to produce articles such as a component of an article of sporting equipment, apparel or footwear, including a sole structure for footwear.

Physical foaming a footwear component with a single-phase solution of a polymeric composition and a supercritical fluid is provided. The method include temperature conditioning a mold and then engaging the mold with a robot that conveys the mold to a press. At the press a gas counter pressure is applied to a cavity of the mold before injecting a single-phase solution of a polymeric composition and a supercritical fluid into the cavity of the mold. The process continues with releasing the gas counter pressure from the cavity of the mold and then removing the footwear component from the cavity of the mold. The parameters of the method are configured for the formation of the footwear component in an automated manner.

A soundproof material includes rubber sponge having a specific gravity of 0.2 or less, which is formed by extrusion molding and a subsequent crosslinking and foaming of a rubber composition using a microwave heating device. The rubber composition includes at least raw material rubber, a crosslinking agent, a foaming agent, and carbon black. The soundproof material has a rectangular cross-sectional outer shape, has at least two hollow parts inside formed by a lateral partition wall extending in a left-right lateral direction and at least two hollow parts formed by a vertical partition wall extending in a vertical direction. The method includes adding carbon nanotubes to the rubber composition.

A method of continuously manufacturing a cured membrane includes continuously compounding and mixing a vulcanizable rubber composition in a mixing extruder while continuously removing gasses from the vulcanizable rubber composition during mixing with a vacuum. The vulcanizable rubber composition may be continuously extruded to form an extrudate, which may be continuously calendered to form a green membrane. The green membrane may be continuously cured, such as by a hot air conveyor curing system, to form a cured membrane.

The invention relates to a method for homogenously incorporating filler into a self-adhesive compound, in particular a thermally crosslinkable self-adhesive compound, based on non-thermoplastic elastomer in a continuously working unit with a filling part and a compounding part. The self-adhesive compound contains at least one solid component, at least one liquid component, and at least one filler, and the method has the following steps: (a) feeding at least part of the at least one solid component, such as the non-thermoplastic elastomer in particular, and optionally part of the at least one liquid component to the filling part; (b) transferring the components of step (a) from the filling part to the compounding part; (c) optionally adding additional solid components or additional parts of the solid components to the compounding part; (d) adding the at least one liquid component to the compounding part if the liquid component was not already added to the filling part in step (a); (e) producing a homogenous self-adhesive compound in the compounding part; and (f) discharging the self-adhesive compound. The invention is characterized in that at least part of the at least one filler is pre-dispersed into at least one dispersion liquid in a separate unit and the dispersion obtained in this manner is added to the compounding part. The method prevents high sheering or frictional energies while introducing the filler into the compounding part of the continuously working unit and thus allows the use of temperature-sensitive components, such as temperature-sensitive chemical crosslinking agents in particular.