What is the Advantage and Disadvantage of Wood Imitation Polyurethane foam

The popularity of hard polyurethane foam has been very high and the parts produced using this type of foam are rapidly expanding the market and general use. This type of hard polyurethane foam is known in the Iranian commercial market as wood foam and in the global market as Wood imitation Polyurethane Foam. In fact, ‘wood Imitation’ structure foam, is a new type of carving synthetic PU materials. It has high mechanical strength and hardness, simple molding process, high production efficiency and excellent appearance.

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Today, due to the expansion of the decoration industry and the high cost of handmade decorative goods, along with the market need for mass production and overproduction of these parts, has led manufacturers to use a variety of polymeric materials to replace wood in this industry. Polyurethane foam is one of the most important of them. A special group of hard polyurethane foam has been proposed as one of the best alternatives to wooden decorative parts.

Consequently, nowadays, decorators mostly prefer the use of polyurethane (PU) material in decoration processes. The main reason is that polyurethane contributes to the protection of nature and prevents the cutting of trees for the production of wood-like decoration materials. In addition, it provides superiority with its advantages over real wood.

The most important feature in polyurethane wood foam is its density. According to the expected physical and mechanical properties of polyurethane wood foam, companies producing raw materials adjust the density of this type of foam between 100 to kg per cubic meter. It should be noted that with increasing density, physical and mechanical properties will increase and on the other hand, the weight of manufactured parts will also increase.

Depending on the appearance, required properties, foam density and part size, molds used in the production of polyurethane wood foam from aluminum or steel, rubber or silicone, epoxy resin or other materials used in the molding industry are selected. Moulds must be engineered to resist the expansion force of the foam and not distort. Among mentioned moulds, Silicone rubber moulds are more economical because the use of a release wax, the removal of the same and the application of a primer is omitted, and that on the other hand a quality of replication of wooden surfaces is achieved, which was previously unattainable.

High density polyurethane rigid foam is very light, can replace denser traditional plasterboard, polyester, glass fiber reinforced plastic and other composite wood. Pu foam can be used for producing decorative panels, ceiling, big droplight pattern plate, etc. It has advantage of repeated high accuracy in molding production, product size precision, clear printing pattern, wood texture vivid, exactly copy all kinds of complicated carving handicraft, save manual and work time. It’s also paintable as it hardens.

On the other hand, given the light weight, foam wood beams are much cheaper to install. Each beam can be held up with a few screws, and there’s no need for reworking or extra remodeling to ensure the structure can bear the load. The ease of installation means it takes less time and less effort to achieve the same visual results as real wood.

Scopes of application:

The wood imitation material is widely used in different industries such as furniture, automotive, sculpture and building industry. The foam is also used for decorative building material, decorative cornice and board, sofa leg, carved furniture and artwork, decorative wall panel, picture frame, mirror frame, wood imitation furniture spare parts, European classical style furniture, shoe mould, large carving products, ski board core, auto spare parts, car interior furnishing, pipe support and etc.

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In conclusion, to sum up it can be said that wood, an indispensable part of furniture and decoration, has been replaced by polyurethane applications in many areas in recent years. The main reasons are different advantages of PU foam over wood such as long life, easy shaping, dyeing, lightness and ease of application.

Imitation wood polyurethane rigid foam

In recent years, people’s environmental awareness has been increasing, which has led to the search for solutions to find a suitable alternative for wooden decorative parts.

Advantages of imitation wood polyurethane rigid foam:

• Good liquidity
• Uniform density
• Good compressive strength and size stability
• Light weight
• Easy maintenance and repair
• Decay resistance
• Thermal insulation and thermal stability
• Save manpower and material
• Green CFC-free foaming technique
• Excellent adhesive performance to material such as wood, metal, brick, and glass
• Stable chemical properties
• Long service life
• Paintable
• Potential for sawing and drilling

As mentioned above, compared with natural wood, PU imitation wood material has obvious advantage: molding. In fact, the liquid state of polyurethane foam raw materials facilitates the possibility of molding complex decorative parts and the reproducibility of uniform production of these parts. It can be applied in mould mass production of various shapes, especially good at carving patterns. Carved wood product looks vivid.

Injection of this type of foam is done according to the production volume and size of parts in the form of manual injection, injection with low pressure device and injection with high pressure device. Unlike wooden parts, the moulded foam can be bent immediately after moulding to some extent (it’s pliable right after the demoulding).

The moulded products appearance and performance are similar to wood, strength is higher, density lower, can be dug, saw or drilled; Also has excellent acid and alkali proof and anti-corrosion performance.

The foam has another major advantage in that it won’t decay like wood. Moisture doesn’t affect foam how it might affect wood (which could warp, crack, or provide a haven for mold growth). As such, high-density foam wood beams last a long time without the need for significant maintenance.

As high-density polyurethane is much cheaper to produce and transport than real wood, the process of sculpting, molding, and finishing each piece costs far less than that of creating hardwood beams. Additionally, high-density polyurethane is easy to paint, creating the realistic look you want; also the paint is less likely to chip since the material has high paint adhesion. The wood foam beams can be molded to any shape without having to account for the limitations of heavy wooden components.