One of the most important and useful systems that has been developed for industrial applications is the elastomeric coating. This revolutionary set of products allows for some unique, modern, and cost effective industrial solutions that address plant life extension, in general.
What an Elastomeric Coating Does
Of course, there’s always the question of what this type of coating actually does that makes it so useful, especially in industrial settings.
Before understanding that, you need to first understand thermal expansion. Essentially, when things get hot, they tend to get larger. Often this enlargement cannot be noticed with the naked eye, but it can be by a significant amount. Different materials expand at different rates and from different temperatures, so it can be difficult to prepare for this.
This expansion becomes a problem in industrial settings where temperature changes can happen often or in outdoor areas where changes of several dozen degrees or more can occur daily. What often happens is that sealants and protective coatings will expand and contract at a different rate than the substrate they are protecting, opening up holes in the seal and eliminating the benefits of it altogether.
What an elastomeric coating does is stretch with the object, structure, or substrate beneath it, so the surface of the substrate does not break through. The easiest way to understand how this works is to know that “elastic polymer” (“elastomer”) is another name for “rubber,” though most often that word refers to a specific type of elastic polymer. Essentially, this is painting a thin rubber coating on something to protect it.
What Can These Coatings Accomplish?
There are a number of benefits to using this sort of coating. For example, a waterproofing contractor may apply it in an area where you need basic waterproofing, especially for outdoor electronics cabinets, roof top air handling equipment, cooling towers, etc. Chemical attack protection is also something that can be attributed to a high quality coating, especially in a place that suffers from corrosion, another form of chemical attack that is pervasive in every industrial plant, uses corrosive chemicals widely, or where there is a possibility of a spill. Finally, concrete protection protects floors in high-traffic areas or areas of heavy industrial use.
No matter what type of industry you’re in, you can get a lot of benefit out of the right kind of protection. And if thermal expansion is an issue, then you can’t do any better than with a modern, high tech elastomeric coatingsuch as ENESEAL HR and ENESEAL CR. Contact ENECON NorCal today, for a full line of protective coatings for all types of industrial applications.
