Anisotropic polymer foams have been prepared, which exhibit a Poisson's ratio exceeding 1, and ratios of longitudinal to transverse stiffness exceeding 50. The foams are as much as 20 times stiffer in the longitudinal direction than the foams from which they were derived. The transformation process involved applying a uniaxial stress sufficient to produce 25% to 45% axial strain to open-cell po...

Polyurethane foam cushions in a slab form or a customized contoured form are commonly used in wheelchairs to prevent the development of decubitus ulcers (DU) in elderly chronically ill persons. Sixty-two consenting subjects, 60 years or older, were randomly assigned to sit on one of the two types of cushions for 3 or more hours daily for 5 months. A total of 72 DU developed in the 52 subjects w...

An extensive product range is mandatory to be a key player in the pipe insulation market. The polyurethane preinsulated pipe producers are responding to global opportunities by diversifying their activities into industrial, marine, oil and gas applications. Moreover, the requirements for traditional district heating preinsulated pipes including initial thermal conductivity and its ageing perfor...

A large number of independent and interacting factors affect seating comfort such as seat shape, stability, lumbar support and seat height. Although many subjective comfort studies have been conducted, few of them considered seating comfort from its subassembly level. This paper analyzed the automotive seat cushion designed with geared four-bar linkage for the seat height adjustment. The operat...

Vehicle seat suspension is one of very important components to provide ride comfort, in particular, commercial vehicles, to reduce driver fatigue due to long hours driving. This paper presents a study on active control of seat suspension to reduce vertical vibration transmitted from uneven road profile to driver body. The control problem will be firstly studied by proposing an integrated seat s...

BACKGROUND Skin grafting is a frequent surgical procedure used to reconstruct a soft-tissue deficit. Tie-over bolster dressing is the traditional technique made to fix the graft to the recipient area. This dressing does not always provide satisfactory results in some difficult body areas, with poor skin graft taking as an outcome. Here, we used a soft "polyurethane sponge" as a compressive tool...