Collaborating For The Future: Key Industry Players Team Up To Offer OEMs Turnkey Coated Polyurethane Pultrusion Process

OEMs are increasingly relying on the superior performance of polyurethane resins when producing pultruded profiles for demanding outdoor applications. The light weight, high strength, resistance to rust and rot and longevity of powder-coated pultruded polyurethane parts make them viable options for a range of industries and applications, including pipe pilings, cross arms and telephone poles.

The traditional manufacturing process for pultruded polyurethane profiles requires multiple manufacturing steps and extra handling to pultrude the part and then separately coat the finished product to avoid UV degradation. In the traditional polyurethane pultrusion process, this coating is applied in a second step, adding time and cost to production.

Creative Pultrusions, Inc. and Powder Coating Solutions invited Bayer MaterialScience LLC to team up with them to develop an integrated pultrusion and coating process to help OEMs save time and money without sacrificing the integrity of the end product. The collaboration leverages Creative Pultrusions' technical talent and 15 years of experience pultruding polyurethane resins, Powder Coating Solutions' powder coating technology and Bayer's high-performance resins resulting in a team of industry-leading companies.

The combined expertise provides end users and OEMs potential benefits, including improved end-part performance, a reduction in future capital expenditures, down time and maintenance costs, as well as improved system reliability.

Creative Pultrusions brings technical know-how to produce outstanding parts with a focus on lean manufacturing and process improvements. Bayer offers a tough, high-strength resin with high pultrusion line speed combined with a proven record of collaborating with customers to optimize performance. Powder Coating Solutions specializes in the processes and equipment for powder coating of non-conductive substrates and also supplies a variety of powder coating products.

The streamlined system puts Powder Coating Solutions' Pultrucoater™ equipment in line with pultrusion equipment, enabling the process of pultruding, powder coating and cutting a part to occur in one continuous operation. This setup eliminates the need for a potentially costly and time-consuming secondary coatings application.

"Together we seek to offer the market a pre-validated and proven turnkey solution to produce high-performance and long-lasting pultruded polyurethane products for previously untapped markets," says Paul Platte, market manager – Polyurethane Composites, Bayer MaterialScience LLC.

"Corrosion issues cost owners and users significantly through down time, outages and future capital expenditures," said Shane Weyant, chief executive officer and president, Creative Pultrusions, Inc. "This innovative approach addresses those issues, enabling the electrical utility, transportation, oil and gas, and infrastructure markets to greatly benefit from polyurethane pultrusion."