Akulon® and Akulon® Ultraflow® polyamides make designing easy

Designers will use various filters to select materials.

Designers must always take into account critical design levels for stiffness/strength and for toughness.

CDL = Strength at Elevated T
CDL = Impact at Low T

Polyamides have a property set which make them ideal materials from a designers standpoint.

• The excellent melt flow of Akulon enables the design of parts with thin wall thicknesses and long flow paths.
• Akulon grades exhibit  high stiffness levels at temperatures above 100°, allowing wall thicknesses of parts to be kept to a minimum.
• Akulon materials are inherently tough, a characteristic that improves as it conditions after molding. This enables the use of more critical snapfit and hinge designs. Akulon’s toughness also reduces the incidence of breakage during demolding of complex geometry parts.
• Parts designed in Akulon can be given various surface textures as the flow will ensure that the surface is closely reproduced. In addition, Akulon can be easily colored during molding, giving greater design scope..The heat aging performance of Akulon PA6 is better than PA66 materials. For parts operating continuously at high temperatures, this allows for a reduction in wall thickness compared to PA66 and greater design freedom.

The heat aging performance of Akulon PA6 is better than PA66 materials. For parts operating continuously at high temperatures, this allows for a reduction in wall thickness compared to PA66 and greater design freedom.

Akulon Ultraflow extends design options
Designing parts, like engine covers, with long flow lengths and thinner wall thicknesses allows for additional cost reduction opportunities.  The improved flow properties of Akulon Ultraflow enables easier filling of challenging designs.

Akulon Ultraflow is a good alternative for metal applications. The highly reinforced Akulon Ultraflow K-FGH0 (50% glass fiber) and K-FGH12 (60% glass fiber) grades offer great opportunities for metal replacement, since their enhanced flow characteristics are similar to those of lower fiber reinforced compounds.  Depending on actual part design, Akulon Ultraflow can lead to substantial cost savings compared to metal solutions. Weight and noise reductions with Akulon Ultraflow may lead to the creation of more value in the rest of the value chain.  Other potential benefits of Akulon in metal replacement applications are parts consolidation and the elimination of secondary operations.

Dimensional stability
Moisture absorption plays a major role in the prediction of dimensions in polyamides. As with all thermoplastics, dimensional changes will also occur over a temperature range, due to thermal expansion of the material. Both phenomena are of a similar order of magnitude. When designing, variations in humidity and temperature conditions during the use of the product should be considered and allowed for.  Reinforced materials display better stability in both respects and unless extremely tight tolerances are required, the stability that is achieved is often sufficient.