Shaped article of composition comprising thermoplastic synthetic resin and cellular material and method of producing same

A shaped article extruded from a heat softened composition comprising resiliently compressible cellular material in the form of particles or granules having a particle size in the range of about 0.3 mm to 2 mm and a polymeric matrix, said cellular material being present in an amount of at least 5 parts per 100 parts of polymeric matrix, by weight, said article comprising particles or granules of said cellular material in substantially undegraded form substantially uniformly dispersed throughout a substantially continuous phase comprising said polymeric matrix and having a textured surface resulting from at least partial relief of the compression of said cellular material caused by the extrusion process, and said polymeric matrix comprising a thermoplastic synthetic resin which is at least substantially saturated, said matrix having a stiffness modulus of not more than 1000 MPa and being extrudable in the heat-softened state under conditions, at which the cellular material is not significantly degraded, and the extruded composition having a Poissons ratio which is less than the Poissons ratio of the matrix.