UHMWPE is processed variously by compression moulding, ram extrusion, gel spinning, and sintering. But you’re not eating (much) food off your tent, so what makes silicone so great for tents? However, it can be problematic if you’re camping for a long time in especially wet areas or in a spot where water pools under your tent. Coatings have several attributes that must be taken into consideration when choosing a coating for a particular use case: One last note before we get to the good stuff. The tube gets filled with water until it soaks through the fabric. PU Coating Explained. PE coatings stretch even less than PU coatings, and they all but eliminate slippage in the fabrics to which they’re applied. Fire retardant chemicals must be mixed in with the coating before it is applied to the fabric. FR chemicals can only be combined with PU and PE coatings, not silicone. PU offers a solid balance of attributes, which is why it is by far the most popular waterproof coating for tent fabrics. The fly is almost always made of a woven fabric (learn more about wovens vs. nonwovens in, The fabric finishing process begins with an undyed, uncoated fabric, called. For tents that will be exposed to large amounts of moisture, PU coatings are often used because they can achieve hydrostatic head ratings in excess of 10,000mm (that’s a lot). The result is that PE coatings often decrease the fabric’s tear strength. This is accomplished by measuring how tall a column of water is before the weight of the water exerts enough pressure to start pushing it through the fabric. ), blow molding and rotomolding. Poor resistance to hydrocarbons (aliphatic, aromatic, halogenated) 4. However, this has the disadvantage of adding considerable weight (coatings, especially PU coatings, are surprisingly heavy) and further reducing tear strength. Polyurethane Coating. Silicone-coated fabrics last longer and have numerous advantages over PU and PE coatings. We almost never come across hydrolyzed PE coatings, and the ones that we have encountered have usually been used for a long time in particularly hot and humid conditions (if you want your tent to last a long time, don’t move to the Philippines or Singapore). The laminates you’ll usually see used in shelters are Dyneema Composite Fabric (aka Cuben Fiber) and waterproof breathable fabrics (WPBs) that are used in most single-wall tents. We have never seen a case of mold growth on a silicone-coated fabric (again, this doesn’t mean you should put your tent away wet! PTFE is a fluorinated plastic that coats the inside of nonstick pans. This happens because of the way the coating affects the slippage of the fabric. Jiazhou Machinery Single Side Paper PE Extrusion Coating Machine SDF-A - Duration: 1:15. For which requirements is it a material of choice? It may take a decade or more, but even if you treat your tent with the utmost care, it will eventually hydrolyze. Because most metal baskets used in foodservice are made from low carbon steel, which can easily corrode. This also means that silicone imparts an unmatched level of mold/mildew resistance. Don’t even think about it!). This distributes the stress on the fabric over a larger area, thus reducing the force and making the fabric less likely to tear. This is the basis for silicone’s chemical inertness. Both the forms of polyethylene are recyclable and used to produce bottles for non-food items, plastics for outdoor applications, compost bins, etc. This isn’t to say that non-PU-coated tents should be stored wet. You can also take some great ideas from https://www.chicagocanvas.com/, Please note, comments must be approved before they are published, Use left/right arrows to navigate the slideshow or swipe left/right if using a mobile device, One of the most important functions of a tent is (obviously) to keep you dry. It’s easiest to start with PE’s greatest disadvantage, and work from there. There is one company that offers stuff sacks with seam-taped sil/sil fabric, but I've seen enough of that seam tape fail to make me think they haven’t perfected it yet. Also, because the two coatings are not applied simultaneously, achieving the ideal thickness on each side of the fabric is a tricky balancing act. Waterproofness, durability, and longevity are all intertwined with PE coatings, so it’s hard to address each characteristic separately. You may have gathered from this that at SlingFin, we prefer to use sil/sil fabrics wherever possible. It falls somewhere on the spectrum around vomit, smelly gym clothes and old raisins and permeates my early memories of camping with my parents. This is why it’s possible to make silicone that’s safe for use in cooking tools or internal applications like implants. When I first encountered this on my dad’s 1970s North Face VE-24, I tried as many homespun cures as I could, to no avail. PEVA is a non-chlorinated vinyl that is often used a direct substitute for PVC. So why would you want to use a PE coating if it compromises the fabric’s tear strength? For this reason, storing a PU-coated tent long-term when it’s still wet means almost certain death to your fabrics. , slide over one another. Safe and reliable connection way. It is far less common than PU, probably because it’s more expensive and simply because it’s not as well known. Polyethylene is used in applications ranging for films, tubes, plastic parts, laminates, etc. Unfortunately, once hydrolysis has begun, there’s no stopping it. and still allows the requisite fire retardants to be mixed into the PU side to achieve CPAI-84 standard. While WPBs often have a Durable Water Repellent (DWR) finish, they don’t get their waterproofness from the DWR. This makes it difficult to maintain a taught pitch in humid and wet conditions. That’s not so easy with silicone, so the main drawback of silicone coatings is that it’s hard to get water columns much higher than 1500mm when you’re using lightweight fabrics. Occasionally, you may come across tents made with fabrics that are waterproof without the use of a coating. This doesn’t factor in much to most companies’ decisions to coat their fabrics with PU, as it’s assumed that something else on the tent will break or you’ll upgrade before hydrolysis becomes a problem. How to process PE? PE coatings stretch even less than PU coatings, and they all but eliminate slippage in the fabrics to which they’re applied. As you would expect, ripping through five yarns at once is harder than ripping through one, and a fabric with more slippage will have a higher tear strength. Outdoor applications your tent in a dry environment will also prolong the life your! A byproduct of a liquid seam sealer good weatherability silicone that can be quite slippery some. 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