Streamlining Robotic Automation with Acrylic Tapes & Extruded Foams

For manufacturers utilising automated and robotic systems, ensuring stable and reliable performance is crucial for high-volume manufacturing. Extruded foams and acrylic bonding tapes provide uniform thickness, density, and adhesive properties that enable consistency in industrial automation, particularly when robots are programmed for high repeatability and precision.

Acrylic bonding tapes such as Norbond A7600, Z3100, Z3000 (EU only), Z2000 or Z800M are capable of maintaining adhesive strength across a wide range of temperatures and ensuring stable performance whether applied manually or via robotic arms. Furthermore, innovative robotic automation systems like RoboTape are specifically designed to handle tapes with minimal adjustments and apply them with high precision and speed.

For extruded foams, the primary advantage lies in their mechanical properties. Often made from materials such as PVC or Thermoplastic Elastomers, these pre-formed products can be precisely cut and applied to exact specifications, enabling robotic systems to operate smoothly without interruptions that might otherwise result from inconsistent material properties.

Both extruded foams and acrylic bonding tapes are highly durable and capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of industrial environments, including exposure to chemicals, extreme temperatures, or physical stress. Their ease of integration, precision in application, durability, and ability to streamline production processes make them invaluable in the era of Industry 4.0. By utilising such materials, manufacturers can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the quality of their products, all while ensuring that automated systems operate smoothly and consistently.

The process of spooling splices multiple rolls of tape together and winds them onto a common core, which helps increase the product length, reduce changeovers, and allow the production line to run smoothly for longer. Spooling not only allows for more materials per spool but also contributes to significant cost savings. Spools of extruded foam have the added benefit of being produced in a continuous process, making the foam splice-free.

Both Norseal Extruded Foams and Norbond Acrylic Tapes can be provided in continuous spools and long lengths that lend themselves well to automated processes. Due to the continuous format of these products, robotic machines can work faster, experience less stoppage time, and provide improved quality of output due to fewer spliced sections.

However, obtaining foam and tape materials in spooled format is just one of the first steps for manufacturers looking to automate their process. For spools to work as intended and integrate well with automation systems, the dimensions of the tape, type of liner, and profile of the part must all be considered. These factors are also all dependent on the capabilities of the machines themselves.

At Tape Solutions, we can assist in liner selection to ensure a liner that will be compatible with specific automation equipment, whether that means polyethylene or siliconised polypropylene. For successful integration with most robotic automation tools, standard liner thickness should be about 3–6 mil as anything narrower than 2 mm generally carries a greater risk of breaking in the machines during application. Acrylic tapes are typically spooled with two liners — where a secondary liner helps prevent the tape from binding up during unwinding, and to facilitate processing.

During the application, the robotics equipment will typically pull the release liner and allow the tape to pass through the applicator head. By pulling on the liner rather than the tape itself, the tape remains intact without stretching or deforming during application.

Other key issues to consider include the amount of overlap of the liner, whether the liner is flush with the tape, which is ideal, and the release force of the liner. In terms of overlap, the liner cannot be significantly wider than the tape as it can create compatibility issues between the tape and the system. And, in terms of release force, liners should typically have a different release level. The secondary liner should have an easier release to avoid liner confusion during unwinding.

To ensure the system can apply the tape properly and that each product feeds through the robotic head without issue, we work together with robotic system suppliers to pre-qualify a tape with a system. Most validation can be done by running tapes through the machines they are to be integrated with. Each machine needs to be specially calibrated to ensure sufficient pressure is applied to the tape for it to adhere, that the speed for laying down the tape is optimal, and that automation is effectively adjusted to the fixturing needs and profile path of each part. Several materials have already been validated together with RoboTape and are considered RoboTape Compatible.

With automation systems like RoboTape paving the way for automated assembly, the combination of tapes and robotics is key for handling high-precision tasks such as bonding surfaces, sealing components or assembling intricate parts.

Connect with our team to discover our wide portfolio of solutions for automated applications or discuss customisation capabilities for specialised configurations, lengths, core sizes, packaging and more!