Appliance Sealing Solutions

Appliance rubber and plastic components

Cooper Standard Industrial & Specialty Group (ISG) can work with you to design—or redesign—a sealing solution for optimum performance in any appliance application.

Cooper Standard ISG’s unique mix of world-class product development, engineering and materials expertise—as well as in-house testing and validation capabilities—can help appliance OEMs build in robust sealing performance in any new product. We also provide expertise in engineering capabilities, including computerized finite element analysis designed to help create the optimum sealing solution to help meet the demands of any appliance application. Cooper Standard ISG can also work with you to create a new seal to decisively solve performance or warranty issues that may be plaguing an existing product.

In addition, Cooper Standard ISG can help you specify high-performing materials to replace an incumbent material which may be impacted by emerging regulatory issues. Our engineering teams can integrate seamlessly with your in-house staff for synergistic and highly effective partnerships—whether project-focused or for greater success long term.

Optimizing appliance components

With experience on projects for some of the world’s largest and most demanding appliance manufacturers, look to Cooper Standard ISG for high performance sealing solutions for many key industry applications including:

Appliance Door Seals
Seals & Gaskets
Anti-microbial Seals
Temperature Resistant Seals
Seal Boots
Grommets
Bellows
Isolators
Connectors
Plugs
Welded Corners
Convoluted Drain Tubes

Helping you Meet Appliance Sealing Compliance Challenges

Appliance manufacturers often need to ensure that their products not only meet stringent performance criteria but also meet the rigorous demands of various regulatory bodies, depending on customer requirements and application needs. Cooper Standard ISG has your back, offering customers a wide range of materials, application expertise and in-house testing and validation tools. Our support can help you effectively meet the responsibilities imposed by organizations including:

UL 157

Cooper Standard ISG delivers the expertise to help ensure that seals and gaskets meet UL 157 requirements by effectively preventing the transference of liquid, gas or vapor, as well as ensure property retention through heat aging, fluid immersion and other environmental testing protocols.

FDA-Title 21

For FDA-regulated products, such as refrigerators, ice makers and other appliances with components that could potentially contact food, Cooper Standard ISG’s materials expertise allows us to certify that the composition of all seals, gaskets and other components comply with relevant aspects of Title 21.

NSF/ANSI 51 and NSF/ANSI 61

Cooper Standard ISG can help ensure that your sealing materials used in food handling equipment fully meet public health and sanitation requirements, NSF/ANSI 51 and NSF/ANSI 61 for end-use applications.

ASTM 1056 and ASTM D-2000

Many appliance manufacturers strive to meet global testing standards to ensure the highest quality products and maximum customer satisfaction. Cooper Standard ISG is expert in such relevant protocols as ASTM D-1056 and ASTM D-2000.

Sealing Materials Expertise

Whether designing and developing a new product, working to improve the sealing capabilities in an existing one, or helping you identify a high performing alternative to an incumbent material, Cooper Standard ISG engineers can provide unmatched materials knowledge and compounding expertise. No matter what the challenge, our engineers can help custom develop a component to meet it. The high performance rubber and thermoplastic materials in our portfolio include:

EPDM

EPDM offers great compression performance, is compliance friendly and has a favorable cost profile—no wonder it’s a go-to material for many appliance applications. Cooper Standard ISG is an expert in standard and specialty EPDM including sponge and colorized products.

Silicone

Silicone delivers outstanding heat resistance in dryers and other high temperature appliance applications, and offers a favorable FDA/NSF compliance record. Cooper Standard ISG is an expert compounder utilizing both dense and sponge silicone formulations.

PVC

PVC offers an outstanding array of properties, and ISG PVC processing expertise—spanning grades from rubbery soft to semi-rigid to rigid—can help appliance manufacturers achieve high-performance at even the most sensitive budget levels.

Fortrex™

A proprietary Cooper Standard innovation, Fortrex™ is a lightweight elastomer with a unique property set, demonstrating excellent compression, high weatherability and aesthetic performance—and it’s environmentally-friendly as well.

Broad Materials Expertise

Cooper Standard ISG’s extensive materials portfolio— including neoprene, nitrile, polypropylene, polyethylene, nylon and Santoprene—can not only help appliance manufacturers solve the toughest engineering challenges, but also help meet emerging compliance issues and green initiatives.

Check out our article on Tips for Designing Extruded Plastic Profiles.

Value-Added Appliance Manufacturing Capabilities

Cooper Standard ISG is not just a parts supplier, we are a value added partner that can work with you to identify cost and labor savings opportunities on each individual appliance project. We deliver the engineering expertise and specialized equipment to strategically prepare parts that optimize assembly operations in your plant, bringing to bear such services as:

Adhesive Laminating

Cooper Standard ISG can deliver plastic, silicone and rubber seals with peel-off, pressure-sensitive adhesive strips already applied to seals and gaskets. With these ready-to-assemble parts, many appliance manufacturers are benefitting from a more efficient, faster, streamlined workflow in their plant.

Identification Marks & Printing

Cooper Standard ISG offers customized seal printing solutions to many appliance manufacturers to help drive assembly speed and accuracy, from simple part or locator numbers to printing precise orientation or placement symbols. Every project is different, and we can help you optimize it.

Coatings

Low friction coatings can significantly bolster seal performance and in turn the operating life of appliances, protecting the seal from wear and displacement in use due to sticking, dragging or freezing. Cooper Standard ISG can specify and apply the optimum coating to your component before shipping.

Specialty Cutting and More

Cooper Standard ISG can not only cut your extrusions to the exact lengths needed, accurate to the tightest tolerances, but can also expertly notch, drill or angle cut to accommodate latches, pins or other features, and ship to fit the appliance form exactly, with no need for additional intervention on site.

Specialty Solutions

Cooper Standard ISG can bring a wide range of specialized capabilities to bear on the design and development of optimum seal and gasket solutions for appliance manufacturers. These featured solutions can help you optimize performance and reduce cost, and can include:

iDea® Seal Technology

Cooper Standard ISG’s proprietary iDea® Seals technology creates a rigid plastic base that will smoothly slide into an appliance door channel, eliminating the need for secondary mechanical fastening and reducing assembly time and costs.

Download our iDea® Seal Product Sheet to learn more.

Multi-Durometer Extrusions

Cooper Standard ISG’s world-class extrusion expertise includes not only the manufacture of seals using individual thermoplastics, thermosets, EPDM and silicones, but also the ability to extrude multiple materials into a single part to gain important properties. Typical are dual-durometer parts with both rigid and flexible areas for optimum performance.

Molded Rubber and Plastic Products

For large and/or intricate appliance seal and gasket profiles, Cooper Standard ISG offers extensive expertise in rubber and plastic compression molding, transfer molding, injection molding and more.

Rubber To Metal Bonding

Rubber to metal bonded seals can provide appliances with a host of performance advantages including vibration damping, improved UV resistance, longer component life, superior insulation and more. Cooper Standard ISG is an expert in optimizing process parameters and maintaining tight tolerances to achieve the highest quality results.

Push-On Trim Seals

Cooper Standard ISG’s high-performance push-on trim seals are easy to install—simply push into place. They are long lasting and look great in any appliance application.

QuickEdge® Seals

Cooper Standard ISG proprietary QuickEdge® trims provide a fast, easy way to install a decorative or protective edge on any appliance. Just push it down on the exposed edge to engage tremendous permanent gripping power.

Cooper Standard ISG sealing design guide

Improve Your Next Design

Download our Sealing Design Guide for an in-depth resource to help you optimize part production and performance.

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