R.D. Abbott’s Technical Services Continue to Grow

R.D. Abbott Company, Inc., is 100% focused on elastomer technology and its commitment to providing premium polymers, exceptional technical support, and reliable customer service to fabricators, OEMs, design firms, contract manufacturers, and tool makers. This targeted focus has resulted in a full year of expansion at R.D. Abbott to support the growing needs of its customers and supplier partners. The area that has seen the most growth is their technical services.

This past fall, R.D. Abbott more than doubled the size of its testing laboratories in Cerritos, California. Equipment enhancements included an “00C” internal mixer, a 40” compounding mill for scale-up work, as well as an advanced rheometer, tensometer, disperGRADER™, and an integrated lab management system from Alpha Technologies.

In 2015 they also added Design and Development Laboratory Services to their ISO 9001:2008 accreditation and became members of the NACD Responsible Distribution environmental, health, and safety program.

Their lab specializes in formulation development and optimization, dynamic mechanical analysis of rubber materials, process engineering assistance, product characterization, and technical innovations.

Here are a few of their collaborative innovations from this past year:
• Fully characterizing 14 grades of Dow Corning’s XIAMETER® RBL-2004 and XIAMETER® RBL-9200 series LSRs using a suite of chemorheology measurements
• Designing silicone formulations with a 3M™ fused silica filler that maintains physical properties and addresses OSHA’s 2016 final ruling regarding silicosis hazards of crystalline silica
• Developing an anti-static additive for Dow Corning® LSR and high consistency silicone rubber products that helps finished silicone rubber articles stay clean and free of surface contamination
• Studying Cancarb’s Thermax® N990 Thermal Carbon Black in an EPDM dense body seal compound to reduce the electrical conductivity
• Developing two grades of TSE’s MillaMed™ Class VI medical-grade millable urethane compounds
• Lightweighting Dow Corning silicones to a specific gravity of less than 1.0 that meets the specifications for typical aerospace, automotive, and transportation uses, while still maintaining the material’s high strength and dynamic mechanical properties
• Optimizing bonding platinum cure or peroxide cure LSR, fluorosilicone, and high consistency silicone rubber using LORD’s new IMB (in-mold bolding) technologies to thermoplastics resulting in rubber tearing bonds

R.D. Abbott is proud of these collaborative innovations and looks forward to making more discoveries and finding new solutions with their supplier partners and customers.

Source: R.D. Abbott