A method of manufacturing a polyolefin foam sheet composition includes extruding a polyolefin sheet, irradiating the extruded sheet to obtain a physically crosslinked sheet, foaming the physically crosslinked sheet with heat to obtain a foamed layer, and skiving the foamed layer to obtain a foam sheet with at least one skived surface. The surface roughness of the skived surface of the foam sheet is different from the surface roughness of an unskived surface.

An apparatus including: (a) a fluid material conduit in fluid communication with a source of a fluid material, wherein the fluid material comprises unexpanded, expandable polymeric microspheres; (b) a treatment zone in heat transfer communication with a source of heat and in fluid communication with the fluid material conduit, such that the fluid material is directly or indirectly contacted by heat within the treatment zone; and (c) a back pressure generator in fluid communication with the treatment zone, capable of increasing pressure in the treatment zone, which results in expansion of the expandable polymeric microspheres when the fluid material exits the treatment zone.

Disclosed are continuous compression molding processes for producing a flexible polyurethane foam laminate and laminates produced thereby, which may be suitable for use, for example, as a carpet underlayment.

A composite material is formed by combining an expandable polymer having a charge with another polymer having an opposite charge to produce. In particular, the composite material can be prepared by combining the polymers with a medium such as and water, and expanding the mixture using a treatment that expands the mixture to produce, for example, insoluble porous foam-like composites.

The invention relates to a method of preparing expanded thermoplastic microspheres from thermally expandable thermoplastic microspheres comprising a polymer shell encapsulating a foaming agent, the method comprising heating the expandable microspheres within a flexible container (2) to effect expansion of said microspheres and withdrawing gas from said flexible container (2). The invention further relates to an expansion device for preparing such expanded thermoplastic microspheres.

A foamed article is made by infusing the article of thermoplastic elastomer with a supercritical fluid, then removing the article from the supercritical fluid and either (i) immersing the article in a heated fluid or (ii) irradiating the article with infrared or microwave radiation.

A formable resin sheet includes a base, a thermally expansive layer provided on a first side of the base and containing a thermally expandable material, a thermal conversion layer containing an electromagnetic wave heat conversion material that converts electromagnetic waves to heat and provided on one of the thermally expansive layer and a second side of the base, and an electrically conductive layer that is electrically conductive and is provided on another one of the thermally expansive layer and the second side of the base. At least a portion of the electrically conductive layer is provided so as to be opposite at least a portion of the thermal conversion layer, with the base and the thermally expansive layer interposed therebetween.

A system for producing foams for prosthetics and orthotics include a heated housing that stores monomer containers, temperature-controlled hoses separately coupled with the containers and configured to receive monomers from the containers, a dispensing gun assembly fluidly coupled with the containers by the hoses, and a computer controller configured to control a dispensing time period during which the monomers are dispensed from the containers and through the hoses to the dispensing gun assembly and dispensed out of the dispensing gun assembly as a polymer foam. The controller is configured to stop dispensing of the polymer foam out of the dispensing gun assembly upon expiration of the dispensing time period.

A helmet, which can, for instance, be a sports helmet or a work safety helmet, comprises a helmet body that comprises a solid foam of expanded foam particles, wherein the solid foam at least regionally has a varying hardness.

A method for producing a composite component including a bottom layer, cover layer and honeycomb structure, including applying the honeycomb structure to the bottom layer wherein honeycomb chambers are formed. Honeycomb chambers are filled in a reinforcement region with a granular material and granular material is removed from other honeycomb chambers wherein each honeycomb chamber is filled up to a granular-material filling height and honeycomb chambers outside the reinforcement region are free of granular material. The cover layer is applied to the honeycomb structure wherein the honeycomb chambers are closed. The composite component is heated so the granular material in the honeycomb chambers expands to fill it with granular material and the cover layer, the bottom layer, the honeycomb structure and the expanded granular material harden, the density of the expanded granular material in the honeycomb chambers filled with granular material being dependent on the granular-material filling height.