Familiar to us and so common in the world of material - foam rubber - was an accident. German scientists studied the properties of polyurethanes, which have been foamed. Foam the foam was a by-product that for a long time was considered as any usable item. In 1941, the "useless" discovery of Germans took Swiss engineers who are out of layers of foam of foam to the Mat, then the mattress, and after it was replaced by sawdust and waste from textile production, which was filled with Ottomans and sofas, to the foam. Initially, the filler cut ribbons, but in the process of operation, they quickly dumped, so the sheets of foam began to cut out and glue under furniture design. And there was a well-known filler of the same firm "Foam".


The benefits of upholstery foam



One of the main applications of foam rubber and today is furniture manufacturing. The active use of foam in the soft elements of furniture design due to the fact that this material is environmentally friendly, hypoallergenic, does not emit dust, not exposed to mold. If we talk about the negative properties, the main disadvantage of foam is its Flammability and the allocation during the combustion of a number of harmful chemicals.

In furniture manufacturing uses the following types of foam:
standard
- hard
- soft,
- elastic,
- non-flammable.

Furniture foam special requirements: the material must be sufficiently rigid in the economy.


Indicators by which to assess the quality of the foam are thickness and density. The higher the density the foam, the longer will be its life. However, a fairly dense foam rubber is also extremely hard, its use in furniture manufacturing are limited.

To provide soft used a thicker, but lower density foam or glue a few diverse plates, which gives the effect of saving, "remembering" forms of furniture. However, upholstery foam is not durable, aging, he actively starts to crumble, so after 5-7 years need to replace the filler.

For areas that are most greatly exposed to wear, for example, backs and arms of sofas, just use the hard foam of high density, which is often rolled with a roller shape or form yet in production.

The production of foam



Standard foam is made from the main form the polyol. For the manufacture of foam rubber of high hardness or, on the contrary, of softness, to the main form polyol additive is added from the special of its varieties.
For the manufacture of high resilient foam is used mixture of two or three varieties of special polyols.


As already mentioned, the Flammability of foam - virtually the only negative feature of this material. To produce a non-combustible foam, requires addition of source material, special powder - melamine flame retardants and special additives that guarantee the stability of the foam to high temperatures.

The highly elastic foam and non-flammable polyurethane foam are quite expensive and therefore used in the manufacture of expensive furniture models. For the manufacture of comfortable furniture economy-class manufacturers have resorted to the principle of layering: use more economical types of foam, and the upper layer - elastomeric variety, which are ligated to the main form.

Foam rubber is widely used in construction and repair. Buy it often as a sound and thermal insulation material.