Back foaming of soft-touch decorative films

 

W. Michaeli, E. Koning

 

Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV) at RWTH Aachen University

Pontstraße 49, 52062 Aachen, Germany

 

1    Decoration of thermoplastic parts

 

      Decorative parts, e.g. in car interior applications, cellular phone housings or white goods are subject to increasing demands. Cost pressure and weight reduction often call for the integration of functions /1, 2/. Besides the mechanical and optical quality the surface feel has to satisfy the customers’ demands. Therefore many decoration processes have been developed, such as, e.g., varnishing, flocking or paste lamination of films, natural leather and textiles.

      Generally, decoration processes can be divided into multi-stage and one step processes /3/ (Fig. 1).