Light and Comfortable Sports Soles Met With Polyurethane
Sports shoes are with us in our daily life, on weekend walks or in our professional sports activities that are expanding global trends. In sports shoes, which are identified with the words comfort and lightness, the factor that these two terms are expected to be felt the most is the soles.
In case of end-users, expectations on soles rely on sustaining comfort while withstanding the deformation during walking. Especially sports soles with molded densities of 400 kg / m3 and above are produced in the sector.
With the increase in costs due to high material consumption during molding and the difficulties in achieving the lightness of EVA soles, demands on low density class polyurethane have emerged in the market.
Flokser Kimya develops polyurethane systems meet this need in the sector in line with the demands of its customers. The Creacat H-460 product, which Flokser Kimya introduced to the market in the past years to meet with expectations, works at a mold density of 380-420 kg / m3 and a hardness of 44-50 shA. It has been appreciated by customers and is actively in use for light sport sole production.
In order to catch the lightness of EVA and to solve the high material consumption, Flokser Kimya once again guided the market by developing ultra light new sport sole system. Creacat H-466 product, which can work at 320-400 kg / m3 molded density and has similar hardness as standart polyurethane sport soles, developed under this purpose.
H-466 provided the ligthness as in EVA to polyurethane world and achieves 25% molded
weight advantage than standard polyurethane sport sole systems.
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Figure 1. Ultra-light polyurethane (PU) sports soles providing a weight advantage of approximately 25%[/caption]
Comparative product properties of our H-466 and H-460 systems are given in Table 1. This product, which introduced to the market, showed properties close to the H-460 product in mechanical tests such as tensile, rupture, tear and flex.
Despite its low density, H-466’s mechanical properties are close to other products which are actively used in the market. Therefore, this will enable our customers to work with the product safe
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Table 1. Comparative table of our H-466 and H-460 systems[/caption]
* The reaction and working conditions were obtained as a result of measurements made with a low pressure casting machine operating at 6000rpm.
** According to TS EN 12222 standard, test results of the samples were given after conditioning at 23±2 temperature and 50% relative humidity for 24 hours.
The biggest disadvantage of EVA systems, known for their low-density operation, is their low abrasion resistance. Abrasion resistance results of our PU sport sole systems (H-460 and H-466), which show superior performances than EVA as abrasion resistance, shown
in terms of relative volume loss in Figure 2.
From the analysis made according to the TS EN 12770 standard, both our sports sole systems show similar results. Therefore besides from its similarity with EVA soles as molded density, H-466 shows 70% less abrasion than EVA.
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Figure 2. Graph of relative volume losess of H-460, H-466 and EVA sole systems[/caption]
Our journey, started with our low density H-460 sport sole product, takes a new path with our H-466 inspirated from EVA with its lower molded density application and better mechanical properties.
To the future with new systems which Flokser Kimya will develop beyond expectations!
Tibet Hüten
Product Development Researcher
Flokser Kimya
Kerim Can Ünlü
Product Development Executive
Flokser Kimya
Kübra Sarper
Product Development Specialist
Flokser Kimya
Dr. Serpil Yılmaztürk Güney
Product Development Manager
Flokser Kimya
