Artificial snow and Acrylics
Not perhaps the season you think of acrylics? However, this interesting article written for Hardie Polymers by Dr Charlie Geddes seems appropriate.
[This is an example of the many Polymer Knowledge Archive articles in our new website. We have amassed a wealth of knowledge on how polymers are used in different industrial sectors. The Hardies Knowledge Base also helps inform the next generation of material processors and engineers.]
This article first appeared under the title of…
Let it snow, let it snow…
Around this time of year we see a lot of artificial snow. A favourite trick of the special effects experts is to exploit an unusual acrylics polymer. Sodium polyacrylate, a powder which swells with water to produce convincing looking ‘snow’.
Polyacrylates are cousins of the most important member of the acrylic polymer family, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). Better known by its trade names of ‘Perspex’, ‘Plexiglas’, ‘Oroglas’ and ‘Lucite’, PMMA has been around since 1933. It is still one of the best thermoplastics for optical properties and weathering resistance.
Cast acrylic
This is available in sheets or rods and is easily machined and polished to produce components with a high quality finish. Examples include lenses and displays. Cast acrylic sheet, used as glass replacement in safety equipment and transport, is also suitable for thermoforming, from simple line bending for signs to large vacuum formings such as baths.
Unfortunately the melt viscosity of cast acrylic is too high for extrusion and injection moulding but moulding grades are available, with shorter chains and flow additives, giving a lower melt viscosity and suitable for complex optical mouldings such as back-lit displays in automotive fascia, using the wave guide principle, arising from the high refractive index of PMMA. However it must be remembered that the lower MW moulding grades have a lower impact resistance than cast acrylic, which some car drivers discovered when PMMA was first used in rear light clusters.
By Dr. Charlie Geddes for Hardie Polymers.