About Form-in-Place Gaskets
Continually searching for the best ways to increase our services to our customers led to an alternative to die-cut or molded solid gaskets. Form-in-place gaskets are dispensed onto a substrate to provide 100% contact. This seal prevents leaking, keeps out dust and moisture, dampens vibration, and shields against electromagnetic interference. Form-in-place gaskets also shorten lead times, lessen the need for inventory, and can provide very accurate placement of complex gasket patterns with fine detail in a wide variety of materials to meet application requirements.
History of Form-in-Place Gaskets
Like many assembly technologies, liquid gaskets were initially developed for auto manufacturers. In the early 1970s, Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd. made an RTV silicone that Japanese Tier 1 suppliers used to seal engines. A few years later, ThreeBond International Inc. supplied Japanese automotive OEMs with an FIP silicone for various applications.
General Motors first used FIP gaskets in Saturn engines in the early 1990s, notes Cary Long, application specialist at Nordson EFD. He says these gaskets are growing in popularity because they are precisely dispensed every time with almost no wasted material.
Composition
Whereas sheet gaskets are made of cork, rubber, graphite and other materials, liquid gaskets are available as one- or two-component polyurethanes, acrylated urethanes, anaerobics, and silicones. They are opaque in color, typically thicker than structural adhesives and cure as rigid or flexible solids.
FIP gasketing has become a widely accepted sealing and shielding solution over the past two decades across all manufacturing industries. Its unique value proposition of low cost and high performance has made it one of the first choices for engineers looking for shielding and sealing solutions.
It has been used in telecom, military, aerospace, industrial, transportation, life sciences and commercial EMI shielding and sealing applications to replace molded, extruded, die-cut gaskets and RTV sealants for decades.
Expanding Capabilities
The three-axis FIP gasket application process allows dispensing of precisely positioned, conformable gaskets in a variety of cross-sections and in an infinite number of layouts thus saving on material cost, reducing the space needed for gasketing and avoiding expensive gasket production tooling costs.
FIP seals offer good compressibility and low compression set, ensuring years of effective EMI shielding and/or environmental sealing performance.
In 1997 Krafab added our FIP gasket dispensing capabilities to support EMI Shielding requirements using electrically conductive silicone-based compounds. In recent years we have seen a growing need for non-conductive dispensed-in-place and cured-in-place gaskets. We source and apply a variety of gasket chemistries to meet customer design and application needs including:
- Silicone
- Polyurethane
- Polyurea
- Acrylic
Choosing KraFAB
Krafab has the technical expertise, experience, customer service and quality systems in place to meet your needs from design to rapid prototype through production.
We dispense quantities as few as 1 to over 1,000,000.
The Form-in-Place Gasket Experts
K.R. Anderson, Inc has the experience, highly trained staff, and a premium FIP Gasket services that allows us to consistently provide the right product to meet all manufactured materials needs. We have a flexible work floor and the financial resources to rapidly adapt to match customer needs. K. R. Anderson, Inc works directly with the customer to meet all requirements for bulk and converted manufacturing materials all over the world.
Our state-of-the-art equipment and tooling capabilities allow us to process most parts as well as having technically trained, highly experienced representatives. Our customers receive the best products due to a fabrication division that has only the finest in equipment, processes, and personnel.