Plastic Machining with Rexolite Plastic

Transcript

Rexolite is a cross-linked polystyrene microwave plastic. It's harder and more temperature resistant than standard polystyrene. It also has excellent machinability and better shock resistance than most un-reinforced thermoset materials.

This is a very dimensionally stable material. It can stay stable at PSI's ranging from 10 all the way up to 2,000. It's also very lightweight. Its specific gravity or relative density is only 1.05. Rexolite is about 5% lighter than acrylic and it's half the weight of Teflon, but it offers a lot of the same advantages as these materials.

Rexolite is an excellent insulator and it has very stable electrical properties. It has a dielectric constant of 2.53 which it can maintain in environments of up to 500 gigahertz. It also offers above-average resistance to radiation, and it shows very little change in dielectric losses even in exposures of up to 1,000 m-rads.

Beyond that, Rexolite resists deterioration from ionizing radiation. It's also chemically resistant to alkalies, alcohols, aliphatic hydrocarbons, and mineral acids. It resists water absorption, and it can work in operating temperatures ranging from negative 455 degrees Fahrenheit to 349 degrees Fahrenheit.

On top of all these other advantages, Rexolite has excellent sound transmission and it has an optical clarity that's very similar to acrylic.

At Controlled Fluidics, we find that clients across many industries including aerospace, military, and medical research choose rexolite for a wide range of different applications. That includes microwave components, antennae, coaxial cable connections, satellite dishes, and high-frequency circuit substrates. Due to its clarity, we also see this material used for sonar lenses and radar windows.

This only covers the basics. Learn more about Rexolite Plastic on our materials page.