Laminate material
AssigneeNu Cleer Systems Limited
InventorsGeoffrey Charles Thorpe, Kevin Joseph Black, Gavin Blair Watson
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Abstract
A self supporting curved laminate product resulting from curving of a planar precursor, wherein the planar precursor is a self supporting laminate of two sheets of an acrylic thermoplastic, or of sheets including an acrylic thermoplastic, spaced by, but attaching to, an interposed thermoset polyester system, and wherein curving has involved heating of the laminate sufficient to allow its curving without any substantial degradation of the lamination or its component layers.
Claims33
A method of curving a planar laminate to form a laminate product having at least one curved area, comprising the steps of:
- providing a planar laminate, said planar laminate comprising two or more sheets of an acrylic or polyethylene terephthalate glycol (“PETG”) thermoplastic, or sheets including an acrylic or PETG thermoplastic, spaced by, but attaching to, an interposed thermoset polyester system, wherein, said thermoset polyester system comprises a co-reactive monomer, wherein said co-reactive monomer is styrene or a styrene analog that is present in the thermoset polyester system in a quantity from 30-55% by weight, and wherein the interposed thermoset polyester system has an elongation at break greater than 150% and a glass transition temperature less than ambient temperature;
- heating the planar laminate to a shaping temperature, wherein said heating step involves concentrating heat in and onto a particular area of the planar laminate from both sides of the planar laminate, without heating the entire planar laminate, without producing any substantial degradation of the lamination or its component layers;
- shaping the particular area of the planar laminate to the desired curvature;
- and
- cooling the laminate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.