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Where the rubber hits the road is where a caster’s tread material is truly tested. And whether its rubber or steel, wrought iron or polyurethane, it’s critical to understand the balance between material load capacity and floor protection to keep your casters, and your production process, moving smoothly.
Through years of experience in the industrial wheel business, we’ve determined that the best compromise between load capacity and floor protection is offered with polyurethane treads. That’s because polyurethane can be engineered in a variety of ways to ensure that your casters and wheels are both ergonomic and durable.
At Reaction Industries, we process all polyurethane tread material in-house using an open casting polyurethane molding process. This allows us to maximize quality and flexibility, ensuring you get the best tread formulation. It also enables us to create custom formulations for specific uses, such as helping to minimize scrap metal pickup, for example.
In the development of polyurethane parts for industrial caster wheels, casting, too, plays an important role that can either make or break the finished product. That’s why, in the process of fabricating heavy-duty casters, the task of polyurethane casting (the pouring of molten poly into molds) is done manually. This helps ensure that no air gets trapped in the material which could weaken the cross-linking of the materials.
There are many advantages of using polyurethane wheels in industrial applications. At our state-of-the-art processing facility in Albion, Michigan, Reaction Industries produces tread materials that help with ergonomics, high speed powered applications, harsh environments, chemicals, moisture, and many other challenges.
The versatility of polyurethane is hard to beat. Polyurethane wheels are some of the most ergonomic on the market and provide less resistance than all other wheels. Here are some of the polyurethane wheels manufactured at Reaction Industries:
• T/R 85 Tread Polyurethane
This material produces an 85A durometer wheel that resists the accumulation of metal chips, sheet metal screws, and foreign objects often found in manufacturing facilities. The high rebound of this material provides increased rollability in ergonomic in-plant applications. It’s a favorite in production line delivery systems across the country.
• T/R 95 Tread Polyurethane
T/R 95 offers the strength and durability of a standard 95A durometer poly while achieving some ergonomic benefits, a high tear resistance, and longer wear life. This formulation achieves good solvent and oil resistance and is nonmarking.
• Standard Polyurethane
Caster Concepts’ standard durometer 95A polyurethane is easy to identify by its maroon color. This material is economical, provides a lower rolling resistance than rubber wheels and protects flooring from damage and scuffing while maintaining the hard durometer needed for industrial applications.
• HPPT Polyurethane
Caster Concepts has worked to develop a line of polyurethane caster wheels that will withstand the rigors of higher loads and speeds found in today’s lift truck industries. These wheels are designed to dissipate the heat being generated through the load, the speed, or a combination of both.
• ErgoTread
This tread formulation is designed to achieve optimal ergonomic benefits. ErgoTread returns energy, reducing initial and continuous push-pull force. It also resists debris, is quieter, and non-marking and takes it easy on flooring.
• Soft Tread
The softest polyurethane we offer, 70A is designed for lighter loads, and ultimate floor protection and noise reduction.
• Hard Tread
The hardest durometer polyurethane we offer, shore 70D, designed to maximize weight capacity. This extra hard polyurethane is ideal for heavy loads. It is also non-marking and wear resistant.
Whatever your polyurethane need; MDI, TDI, short run, or long run, special compounds or standard material, you can count on Reaction Industries to provide a high-quality product that will meet all of your specifications and needs. It has, and always will be, our formula for success.
