Polyimide Film Is Utilized Throughout Industry

By Dawn Williams


For many people the mention of polyimide film is met with a blank look. Yet it might surprise these people to find out how extensively its used in the modern world today. Thanks to the properties possessed by this material it has proved to be extremely useful. They are lightweight, very flexible and resistant to both heat and chemicals.

A couple of these properties make it an ideal material for use with modern electronics. A common example that illustrates this point is the flat flexible cable which connects the body of a laptop to the screen. It is easy to understand the need for flexibility as a laptop is opened and closed on such a regular basis.

Should you get the opportunity to see a dismantled laptop computer, the cable that has just been mentioned will be easy to identify. It will be of an amber color and the metal tracks will be clearly seen. The amber colored sheeting is this versatile material.

The metallic tracks will be firmly fixed to the sheet by an adhesive. Due to the insulating properties of the sheeting its even possible to have tracks running either side of the sheet, but further insulation will be required to prevent any possible shorting between the tracks and the case. Other uses in the electronics world also includes masking areas of circuit boards, also providing insulation to such devices as capacitors and transistors.

This material is possibly best known for its resistance to high temperatures. Consequently an ideal area to make use of this sheeting will be anywhere which gets subjected to constant heat. As a material this will continue to function properly in temperatures in excess of 400 degrees Celsius.

Routinely any material which becomes affected by heat will either distort or degrade. It will either shrink or stretch. Either effect will cause the affected material to become unfit for the original purpose. Its therefore a real plus when you note that this material suffers virtually no obvious effects when subjected to the same treatment. In fact the only thing that people might notice will be a slight darkening.

When it was initially developed, this material was used almost exclusively by the military and by the defense industry. Since entering into the mainstream civilian industries the applications that it is now used in have really increased. These applications can range from micro electronics in medicine to space agencies.

Engines are a prime example, as they operate they become hot. Engines can be found throughout the vehicle industries, aviation industries and even space flight. The sheeting is highly resistant to heat, and so will not conduct heat from one side to the other. Therefore it is ideal if something needs to be protected from conducted heat, such as engine cables. If these cables were unprotected the normal insulation could degrade over time and lead to other potential problems.

One more advantageous property that this polyimide film has is that it is very robust. As previously mentioned this can prevent damage to other items, the benefit of this is that the repair costs can be kept to the minimum. It is not surprising that industries are forever looking for more ways in which to use it.




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