Flexographic plate mounting tape
AssigneeAvery Dennison Corporation
InventorsWilliam G. Hartman, Thomas C. Epple, Roger H. Mann, Edward I. Sun
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A double sided tape for detachably mounting a flexible printing plate to a flexographic printing press cylinder includes pressure-sensitive adhesive layers on opposed sides of a coextruded multilayer carrier having a core formed of a thermoplastic elastomer containing a uniform distribution of voids and one or more skin layers formed of film-forming thermoplastic polymer. The cellular thermoplastic elastomer is constructed to accommodate compressibility loads imposed during printing and to resist shear and tensile loads imposed during tape removal.
Claims28
A double sided tape for detachably mounting a flexible printing plate to a printing press plate holder, said mounted printing plate being adapted to apply printing ink to a plurality of workpieces to be printed during printing operation, and to then be unmounted by detaching the printing plate from the holder, said tape comprising a hot formed multilayer carrier including a core layer formed of a thermoplastic elastomer matrix containing a substantially uniform distribution of voids generated by a blowing agent comprising thermally expandable microspheres and at least one skin layer formed of a film-forming thermoplastic polymer, said core layer having a void volume determined by the proportion of blowing agent in the core layer and by the degree of expansion thereof, said voids having a size substantially corresponding with the size of the expanded microspheres and being at least an order of magnitude larger than the microspheres of said blowing agent prior to expansion, said core layer having a compressibility and a tear strength which respectively accommodate compressive loads imposed during printing and tear or shear loads imposed during tape removal, said tape also including first and second pressure-sensitive adhesive layers respectively on opposed faces of said carrier, said tape being adapted to cause said printing plate during press operation to apply printing ink to a succession of workpieces to be printed at a degree of compression of said carrier which is substantially predetermined by the void volume of said core layer, and said core layer during tape removal providing sufficient tear strength to cleanly strip and separate said tape from said holder.
A double sided tape for detachably mounting a flexible printing plate to a printing press plate holder, said mounted printing plate being adapted to apply printing ink to a plurality of workpieces to be printed during printing operation and to then be unmounted by detaching the printing plate from the holder, said tape including a multilayer carrier comprising a coextrusion of a first charge of an elastomer containing a blowing agent comprising thermally expandable microspheres for forming a core layer and a second charge of a film-forming thermoplastic polymer for forming at least one skin layer, said carrier being coextruded at an extrusion temperature and said blowing agent having an expansion temperature selected to enable coextrusion of said carrier with expansion of said blowing agent occurring at substantially the end of the extruding process, without materially affecting the manipulative steps thereof, to provide said core as a matrix of said elastomer containing a substantially uniform distribution of voids formed by the expanded microspheres of said blowing agent, said tape also including first and second pressure-sensitive adhesive layers respectively on opposed faces of said carrier.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.