Company insight
Extruded coating capabilities exceeding global standards
Sandvik is a world-leading developer and manufacturer of products in advanced stainless steels and special alloys for the most demanding industries, medical being one of them.
oating applied by an extrusion process has been added to Sandvik Materials Technology’s EXERA coating programme to complement its wide range of polymer possibilities. “With our very good concentricity and dimensional control, we can offer an extruded product with tolerances and wall thicknesses that exceed global standards,” says Robert Naber, process engineer at Sandvik. The EXERA precision-grade ETFE polymer coating is a biocompatible coating added in an extrusion process when precise coating is required. It can be made in any wall thickness larger than 0.02mm, where typical tolerances are ± 0.01mm – thinner wall thickness on request. Extruded coating with EXERA precision-grade ETFE polymer coating is offered on non-precious metals, such as nickel alloys, copper, tungsten, and copper clad steel over 0.07mm in diameter. “I find that qualitatively looking at the wire, feeling the wire, evaluating stripability in addition to quantitative dimensional measurements from the laser gauge, help us evaluate our performance.
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Sandvik can offer an extruded product with tolerances and wall thicknesses that exceeds global standards.
However, there is a considerable amount of math that needs to be applied when establishing toolsets and process parameters too. The combination of math and art is where the magic happens with the extrusion process,” says Naber.
where the quality of the coating is critical, especially as a thicker coating is required,” Naber says. “EXERA products are known for very high-quality surface treatments in general, but the extrusion capability can take us one step farther in
“EXERA products are known for very high-quality surface treatments in general.”
Robert Naber
Benefits of extruded wire coating “The advantages for the medical field are threefold,” Naber explains. “For us, one advantage is that you can coat very quickly. It’s a much faster process compared to flood coating operations and only a single pass is required for most products. “The other advantage is that we’re able to coat a wider variety of materials because flood coatings mandate that the resin can be dissolved in a safe solvent. Not all materials can be dissolved easily. “The third advantage is that you can achieve a more precise coating
supporting our customers with improved performance of their products.”
Precision-grade coating
EXERA precision-grade ETFE polymer coating is a copolymer of ethylene and tetrafluoroethylene. ETFE resins has great resistance to abrasion and stress cracking.
EXERA ETFE coating is used in extrusion straight tubing, coated wire, and cable. It’s used in applications where electrical isolation at elevated temperatures, high degree of mechanical toughness, chemical inertness and/or low friction is required. Typical applications include sensing leads, handheld devices, implants, robotic connectivity and other microelectronic medical devices since it can operate in wide-temperature ranges, has low water absorption and performs well with ETO (ethylene oxide), autoclave and gamma sterilisations. At the COMPAMED show, attendees can meet the Sandvik team in booth 13C45. The team is looking forward discussing materials and coatings challenges at the event. ●
https://exera.sandvik Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com 135
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